What happens when you mimic your baby

Babbling back and forth with a newborn is doing more than just making them smile

One of the most freeing things about having a baby is the DGAF credits it puts in your account. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a parent go full, unabashed clown mode to entertain their toddler in a park. My partner plays a form of peekaboo with our daughter that involves leaping up and down like a grasshopper – a full body performance I’m not sure my knees could take – and shrieking ‘HALLOW!’ She’ll do this in a crowded train station or a busy pub and be just as committed to the bit as if we were at home. It’s my favourite thing to watch.

My version of this joyful, not-giving-a-fuckery is talking to Olive in public. Not talking to her – mimicking the babbles, squeals and occasional ungodly growls she makes as closely as my vocal range will allow. When this happens she looks at me with a kind of delighted comprehension; our eyes connect and we go back and forth in ‘conversation’ for a while until she gets distracted. We do this at home lying around on the floor or sofa, but we also do it while walking through the park, which attracts a lot of startled looks usually followed by approving smiles.

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In The Life of Dad – I mentioned this book last week, it’s a good one – Anna Machin argues this kind of public interaction is vital for a man to fully step into the role of father. Because we don’t go through the physical experience of pregnancy, we spend the first few months in catch up mode with Mum when it comes to bonding with our newborns. “For women, the connection to their child is physical, visceral,” she writes. “For a man, his connection is social, made by the interactions he enjoys with his child and the social recognition of his role.” I don’t mind admitting those little nods of approval I get from passing strangers do make me feel more like a Dad; it nudges the whole experience from the abstract into the real. It’s usually women who do this, but once a man walking his dog bounded over to do the whole ‘how old is she?’ thing, which felt great. All of this is to say: if you see a man with a baby, a kind look or word may be more appreciated than you think.

What happens when we imitate our babies

The thing I’m curious about is the ‘conversations’ themselves, regardless of where they take place. Is that look of recognition I see in Olive’s eyes real, or just a projection? What is actually happening while we repeat our baby’s noises back to them?

First let’s deal with us. The warm, slightly silly rush we feel when we echo our kid’s babbles is a neurochemical reaction. Firing up our mirror neuron system to map and replicate their voice engages brain circuits for both action and empathy*, and in turn gives us a squirt of oxytocin (the bonding chemical) and dopamine (the rewarding one). This is no huge surprise: most of what feels good about parenting involves one, the other or both chemicals. But what I personally love about this activity is that it feels like an exciting little preview of when Olive and I can have actual conversations together. It’s the high of a shared smile, with added excitement.

For our babies, it feels good too. A 2020 study published by Lund University found that by just six months old, babies start to recognise when they are being imitated and perceive it as friendly. This is why when a stranger smiles at them on a train, they generally smile back.

It’s also teaching them – a lot. In 2024, researchers in Cornell University published a report into protoconversation – the official name for call-and-response interactions between an infant and their caregiver – that claimed it actually helps babies develop stronger language skills: “Infants who engage in longer and more frequent turn-taking bouts with their caregivers had higher language comprehension and production scores in their second year.”

Another fascinating study from 2021 found that the sounds babies make aren’t just random experiments with their developing voice boxes: they are, from surprisingly early on, matching the consonants they hear in their caregivers’ speech. This means that when we bounce a babble back in real time — matching its tonality and rhythm — we’re reinforcing that learning, sound by sound, helping to build the scaffolding of their speech and language. It’s an early stepping stone in language acquisition.

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There is even some evidence mimicry helps babies develop useful social skills for later life. For a long time, it was believed that a newborn’s ability to imitate us was innate. A 2023 study carried out at LMU university in Munich concluded it is much more likely the ability is acquired from us, and that the more we imitate our babies, the better they in turn get at it.

Obviously the crude way we mimic babies would be incredibly rude in an adult interaction, but think how often we deploy subtle acts of mirroring when talking to people. Matching body language, vocal tone and so on is a crucial part of empathising and bonding with others. “Mimicry paves the way to [a baby’s] further development. Imitation is the start of the cultural process toward becoming human," as the lead of the Munich study put it.

Aside from being educational, there is a far simpler and more beautiful benefit for our babies when we copy them. It signals to them that they matter. “Mirroring allows infants to readily notice the relation between their own behaviors and those of their [caregivers],” found a 2017 report. In other words, when you echo a baby, you’re teaching them not just about cause and effect but their own agency. It’s saying: look, helpless little one, you can shape the world around you. In adults, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery. To babies, it’s a clear sign of love.

My book Good Anger: How Rethinking Rage Can Change Our Lives is available in shops now, or can be ordered online at Amazon or Waterstones.

* Iacoboni, M. (2009). Mirroring people: The science of empathy and how we connect with others. Picador