Why do Some Couples Baby Talk?

You’ve probably seen how adults talk to newborns differently than they do to other adults or even toddlers. They raise their voices and do things that would be considered rude or disrespectful in normal adult discussions. Some even have their voices take on a sugary tone that will make any nonparent (and even some parents) sick. This change in tone, syntax, and attitude is sometimes referred to as baby talk. This “baby talk” is sometimes the way in which partners or couples converse with each other.

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Sharing your adoration with your partner may be one of the most intense emotional motivations imaginable – at times, an overwhelming urge. Popular songs talk of globally announcing one’s love for one’s cherished by shouting it from the rooftops. Modern couples have openly commissioned planes to fly banners or even sky-write their head-over-heels love. Baby talking has nowadays become an actual way in which a couple may converse with each other. Couples may use multiple baby terms as words of endearment to address each other through conversations.

But why do they talk like that?

But there must be certain reasons or scientific explanations as to why people resort to these kinds of conversations especially with their partners to exhibit their feelings of endearment. Research has concluded the inevitable role of multiple neurotransmitters like dopamine, phenylethylamine and even oxytocin. Dopamine triggers the reward centres of the brain, causing an enamoured pair to want to spend as much time together as possible. It is associated with pleasant sensations of pleasure, excitement, and exhilaration, as well as enhanced energy and a sharper concentration of attention. The amphetamine-like chemical correlate of the physical and psychological connection between lovers is called phenylethylamine (or PEA).

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It’s also known as the love chemical. Oxytocin, the emotional connection, or bonding, hormone, contributes even more to the soothing, consoling, and at times joyful emotions of close physical touch that characterize romantic love. Surprisingly all these three mentioned neurotransmitters play an inevitable role in maintaining the beautiful enamored connection between a child and its mother. Dopamine activates the brain areas that induce the mother to be with her child forever and is released when a mother exhibits feelings of emotional attachment and immense love towards her baby. Phenylethylamine, similarly, induces the parent, both the mother and possibly even the father, to feel the parental feelings of rush they feel at their child’s presence. Oxytocin, on the other hand, is the bonding hormone that is released at the face of nursing and early child-mother interactions.

Furthermore, when a mother and her child are separated, they might both feel a strong desire to be reunited, much as lovers can miss one other horribly even when separated for small periods of time. Baby-talking amongst adult partners can display many nuances of the relationships they are in and there might exist many explanations as to why they converse the endearing way they do.

Healthy Relationships

Baby talk can never be solely considered the way to kindle intimacy in a relationship. It can also be proof as to the relationship these partners nurture is nothing but absolutely healthy. Researchers comment that these conversations aid highly in nurturing the partner and strengthening the bond they share with each other. Baby talking can be further noted and identified as an extension of the love that one may have received during their infancy which ultimately turns out to be that period in one’s life wherein they develop trust in the people around them and frankly upon the entire world they are born into. Baby talk further enhances the dynamic beauty of the relationship the partners are in and maintains its stability as well.

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Intimacy

One of the pivotal reasons why baby talk develops closeness or intimacy among partners is that it may resemble how you were spoken to when you first came into this world. Your parents or another adult, such as a grandmother or guardian, may have been the first individuals you bonded with in this world. Regardless, they most likely spoke to you in the typical way that people speak to newborns. Couples may mostly find a closeness in the bonds they nurture between them by mimicking the parental love they once received, but this time the medium used is mainly the language.

Feeling Safe

Baby talk helps you to feel loved in the same way you did as a child, but it also allows you to feel secure and protected by someone else. When you baby-speak around someone, you’re not trying to impress them or show an ideal image of yourself. You are vulnerable to your spouse when you speak like a kid, just as you were to your parents or guardians when you were a youngster. And having someone with whom you can share safe days and secure settings is a very liberating experience.

Connect

Baby talk might be more advantageous or intimate for the one giving it than for the person receiving it. Even when parents are speaking to actual newborns, baby talk benefits the adults by allowing them to regard the baby as someone they need to protect, which develops a connection. Similarly, in love relationships, the person who speaks like a baby generates warm sentiments for their partner by doting on them. These conversations may sometimes sound pretty idiotic to outsiders, even when it is between a mother and child or especially when between two people who are in a relationship.

But they are mostly never created or predecided words of affection. They mostly come undecided and turn out to be more than pleasing for the ear when it is mutually liked by both partners. It simply serves the purpose of putting out the hidden deep emotions, out naked to the other person. These words and sentences just stand as a testimony to the intensity to which they desire each other’s company and to their wish to keep each other close.

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