Let's talk bilingual babies

[Andrea]

I am originally from South America, and my mother tongue is Spanish. It is super important for me and my husband to have O be fully able to seamlessly switch from English to Spanish. My main concern is that I can't really do 100% Spanish at home because my husband is not even close to fluent. We are planning to get him a Spanish speaking nanny, and I am doing a mix of both languages but I am already catching myself using more English.

HELP.

Anyone have any experience with successfully raising multilingual tots?!? Words of wisdom?

I know there are some of us here in the same boat- let's support each other with ideas & encouragement!

[frecklesnbrains]

I'm not bilingual (I wish I were!) but I have several friends who are and are successfully raising their kids to learn the second language even though the second parent is English speaking only. Kids are language sponges, so they will soak up whatever they're exposed to as long as you keep it up. You can definitely speak to O in Spanish whenever you are alone with him or it's not important for your H to understand what's going on (which is honestly often - I'm usually talking to my baby about how to latch the nipple or encouraging him to fart, etc...) Make an effort to do so for a little bit every day. A Spanish-speaking nanny is a great idea too - I know people who have done this who aren't even Spanish-speaking, just so their kids can get exposed to another language (I'm considering this!). You can also look into bilingual daycare, especially when he is toddler-aged.

[babyzebra]

My BIL's native language is Spanish and it has been his and my sister's goal to make sure my niece and nephew are bilingual. My sister knows a little Spanish, but definitely isn't fluent. The kids have tons of Spanish books and my BIL talks to them in Spanish very frequently. It's never been an issue when he speaks to them in Spanish in front of my sister or any of our family and no one considers it rude. My niece is going to be spending almost the entire summer with her grandparents in their country this year, where she will be immersed in the language. They plan to make it a yearly tradition and my nephew will also go when he is older.

I think Spanish-speaking childcare workers are a fantastic idea because kids are so receptive to language development at a young age. I know several people who have Spanish speaking nannies for this reason. Also, many of the preschools around here teach Spanish, so that's definitely something you can find if you're interested.

DH and I also want our kids to be bilingual and are using a combination of my BIL's help, pre-school, books, flashcards, and help from my sister's ILs family. So far, DS can count to 20 in English and Spanish!

[mladerri]

I posted on the private board already but one thing I did/do with ds is read and sing to him in French. I read the book in French and translate each page the first time I read it. Then the next time I only read it in French and he understands by looking at the pictures and from when I translated it. At 2 1/2 he is counting to 10 in both French/English. He knows random French words or surprises me with what he understands. When he was a baby I would talk to him in French a lot more but when he started talking I only spoke English because I wanted him to understand It also helps that my parents FaceTime and speak French to him. My husband speaks Russian but ds will get mad and says "don't speak French dada!" I don't have any advice because I'm not doing s good job at it but hopefully both kids will at least know a little of both languages.

[sandandsea]

We are in the same situation, except DH is the Spanish speaker, and have failed at this with DS1. From what I've seen/experienced To make it work the Spanish speaker has to be 100% Spanish speaking all the time to get into practice of speaking it at home. And that person has to talk to LO a lot. DH had a really hard time remembering to switch to spanish mode and I talked to DS more. DS has listened to some Spanish songs and knows some basic Spanish ( counting, I love you, more, etc) but definitely does not speak it. They had a Spanish class as DC that we signed him up for and he didn't like it (it took away outside play time and he said it was boring) so we stopped after 10 lessons. My ILs speak to him in Spanish but we only see them a few times a year. Really though exposure and consistency are key.

[mladerri]

I asked my mom what she did when I was growing up and she said, "we sent you to France for a month every year to spend the summer with your grandparents."

[regal]

My friend's kid are fully bilingual, she spoke french to them and her H english. When They were together she some english to her H and still spoke french to the kids.

Try looking up OPOL-one parent, one language.

[nymama917]

I have no experience but I do know that having a nanny speak soanishcwill be so helpful. My old boss wanted his kids to know another language so his nanny spoke to them only in Portuguese. The issue is that him and his wife didn't speak it at all so they HD no idea what the kids were saying or whether or not they were us ng the right terms. In your case you will have to Iand the nanny so that should work out great.

[princessisadora]

As I mentioned before in the private board Spanish is also my mother tongue and it is very important to me that LO learns Spanish. DH is Irish and he is nowhere near fluent in Spanish but does know a wee bit. He also wants LO to be raised bilingual. We live in Miami now so it may be easy here as Spanish is so common place in our city. My mom is staying with me to help out with the baby so she speaks to him in Spanish. My grandmother is Belgian and French is her first language although we mostly communicate in Spanish. I have some basic French skills and it would be awesome if LO could also learn French but I am working on the Spanish thing first.
I have heard of the one parent one language thing , and other acquaintances have opted to just speak exclusively Spanish at home and that the child be immersed in English when he is outside the home. I don't think that is a technique I would use but I know of people that do succesfully.

[packerfan4life]

DD1 (21 months) goes to daycare run and primarily staffed by hispanic women. I'm not sure exactly how much of the time they speak spanish/English but I get the sense that when parents aren't there it's primarily spanish. She definitely understands quite a bit of spanish and does say some words more in Spanish than she does in english - vaca, agua, conejito, aqui, bien, and a handful of others. Additionally she'll answer a few spanish questions (what's your name?, How are you?) That she doesn't know in English. Granted she still speaks much more in english. But all of this is with not starting at that daycare until she was 9 months old and H and I having minimal Spanglish. So I think natural exposure is key. Even if it's not all the time if there is a decent portion of time that he's spoken to in spanish he will likely pick it up pretty easily. Making sure he's consistently exposed to it is important though (I would guess)

[woodengirl07]

Good topic. My husband and I have been debating a bit. He is bilingual in german, but there isn't much call for it here in New Mexico. I speak a lot of Spanish, but am far from bilingual. We would like to expose DD to language but not sure how.