We call waffles woohoos now because that word is just more fun. I’ve also switched to saying “turn the dark on” instead of turn the lights off because that’s what my 2yo says.
My daughter invented “tomorning” and I use it all the time because everyone already can figure out I mean “tomorrow morning” I don’t even have to explain it.
She would also say, “I can’t want to!” Which can be very accurate.
Is she Australian? I feel like this is something that would work very well here. Arvo is afternoon. To say "this afternoon" it is just shortened to "sarvo"..lol
Absolutely. If there’s a toddler word for an item, we almost exclusively use that. She calls swings “wees” because that’s the sound you make on the swing, so we all call them wees now. We always add the real word so she knows it, but yea. Shes call popsicles: “POP!”and claps her hands when she says it, so now popsicles are exclusively POP[handclap]! There’s too many examples in our house of it, but basically every toddlerism is something we say.
When I want my toddler to smile, I told him to say Eeeee! Rather than cheese because he couldn't say cheese yet or still. But he says Eeeee now. And I love it.
We incorporate these all the time, and I love it so much. It's like our own little family inside jokes.
My daughter couldn't say L's for a long time, so any L word gets changed to a Y. Like "yegs" instead of legs. Adorable.
We have an unintentional tradition in my family where all of us siblings' nicknames are based on what the kid you get than them called them when they learned to talk. So we have Keka, Bubby, Bean, Sessa, Mimi, and Kaykay. The youngest of us is 20 this summer and we all still address each other by these.
All the time. It was easy to avoid baby talk when we were doing all the talking but once you hear a word 50 times a day it’s hard to get it out of your head.
Lol yes. I didn't do it intentionally but I find myself calling his pacifier his baba and offering wawa to him. Lol and then my husband and I even will spell out b-a-b-a if we don't want him to catch on.
Hahah so did mine! She didn’t say many animals by names at first and every animal was whatever the sound it made was. So all dogs were “woof woof” and she referred to our dog as woof woof for sooo long so now we call him woof woof 😂😂. She just turned 2 and can talk much better now and can say his actual name but 9/10 times she still calls him woof woof!
There was one day our dogs were being jerks so I jokingly told her ‘they’re being bad puppies!’ And she repeated ‘bad puppa!’ So now the dogs are puppas.
We still sometimes call coffee “coffeet” in my family bc that’s what my little sister (now 30) called it. It’s like the inside joke that never dies (or gets old).
When my sister was little, she called naps “nannies”. It’s persevered for about 25 years in our family, and my husband and I use it now too (with our toddler and without). Tbh I could use a nanny right now 😮💨
Same here! My parents still pronounce carrots the same way my 42yo brother did when he was little :)
My parents also now say "ah-gogo" for avocado like my toddler.
Stickwhip (lipstick). Chompsticks. Chicka Flay. Picture towels, babe in soup, kank you. Lasterday, tomorrio. Lawn the grass.
To say these things right sounds wrong.
I ordered “pasta with shaky cheese” in a restaurant one time and the server and I shared a very awkward pause before I remembered I’m an adult and corrected myself to “parmesan.”
I try so hard to avoid baby talk because I know that regular language use is better for development. But my baby is so cute and small that I end up saying baby talk stuff like, instinctually. I really don’t mean to! If I catch myself, I then re-state it regularly, but sometimes I overcorrect and go really formal. So, conversations go like this:
“Iss time for milk-milk! Iss time for milk-milk! Milk-milk and then sweepy time. Sweepy sweepy time for my little one. Go sweepy, have happy dreams. Go sweepy— Oh shit. It is food time. You are going to receive nourishment. I am going to breastfeed you. Henceforth afterwards, you will fall dormant. It is possible you may experience dreams. I cannot confirm or deny if they will be enjoyable.”
Omg this is too funny! I just pictured that whole scene (sorry OP I made up a generic woman for ya) and if my kid wasn’t just put down for bed I’d be howling.
I really think it's just their influence. I always try to speak to her in the correct words but you just hear them say it so much it's hard to get it out of your head.
I have two toddlers at different ages in speech development, so we have many of these at our house. My 1.5yo will loudly exclaim “Giw!!” and point at our dog (aka good girl) so we’ve all just started calling her “Girl.” Another favorite is “beeda-button” (belly button). When my other son was almost 2, he referred to my boobs as “beeda-buttons” and I still don’t have the heart to correct him yet. Lol
My son tries to say okie dokie but it comes out as “gnocchi gnocchi” and he tried to say I will be (like when we say be careful) but it comes out as “I be will” and my husband and I just say these things now
Omg my toddler has caterpillar crocs we call his crocapillars and it’s so hard not to laugh when he’s like “I want to wear my crocapillars!” while being upset
My toddler used to say this 🥲 sad day when she pronounced it. We used to say “wrap you like a burrito” when she got out of the bath and she started picking up on it saying “wrap like a beedo”
Yes, do some reason the shears of foam-ish packing paper that comes in some packages took the name of “Cloakus” for our little girl. I never had a name for it before (hence the “foam-ish packing paper”), so now it’s Cloakus, and it’s her favorite part of any package we receive. The other day I wake my wife if we needed to get some Cloakus to wrap an around a picture frame we’re packing. She knew exactly what I meant.
My husband and I will say his words to each other and to him as well as mixing it up with the proper pronunciation. But I think it's validating to him hearing us acknowledge and speak his speak.
For the life of us, we still don't know wtf "Bo-Dice" is.
"Tradgers" or "Chens!" Are tractors or train videos on YouTube. we will say "do you want to watch some tradgers?"
He's really into telling us ownership names right now and my folks and us repeat it back too. Example: he will point at chair and say "Gigi's cheeair" and "daddy's twools"
It's cute as heck
My kid has said “bittycomb” forever and we have no idea what it means 😭 when we ask her “but what does that mean??” She just laughs like a lunatic and walks away. Now she’ll even say “bittycomb bittycomb bittycomb…BuT wHaT doEs iT mEaN?” then laugh like she’s the funniest person ever.
Spoon -> “poon”
Fork -> “foon”
Change bum -> “choo bum”
Clean -> “keen keen”
TV -> “fee-see”
Yoghurt -> “yog-UT”
Just to name a few of our favourites. My wife and I use them all the time even when talking to each other without our toddler around sometimes 😂🤦🏻♂️
Hahah I always used to say “let’s change your diapie -doo” and I never realized I said it often enough that the other day she said “Mama! Diapie-Doo” hahaha and now I love it that and calls them that! Same with that I apparently regularly call naps “nappy noodle” so I said “let’s go have a nappy noodle” and she relied “no nappy noodle!” Hahah it’s just so cute!
My daughter refused to say rabbit or bunny for the longest time and would only call them “hop hop”. Her emotional support stuffed animal is a bunny whose name is forever “hop hop” now and I love it!
Sharks are called “doo-doos” in our house… and unfortunately, out the house too.
Nothing like walking through the store with a 2 yo loudly asking for her “doo doo!”
😂
Lol my kiddos love Chick-fil-a sauce and I buy the bottles from the store. Anyway, in our house it’s called “yellow sauce” and a few days ago when I was placing our grocery pick up order I typed in “yellow sauce” and was confused as to why they didn’t have any 😂
A family/home must be a special kinda sad if they don’t have any inside jokes/silly language, even without kids. I and my husband have so many things like saying “dog the walk” or “dog the pee” for no reason… Countless stupid words and phrases that we forget many of their origins.
My husband and I had/have so many too! They’re fun until you’re fighting and need to ask them for something and can’t remember the real name and have to try to say “do you know where the cutie-doodys are?” with a serious tone.
Not really, although I'm always tempted to since it's so cute 😅 I've found it really helps with language development if you still pronounce the words properly around them
I love it. My two-year-old calls chemicals “keh-mer-ker” and it cracks me up!
But like comment op, I don’t want him thinking baby talk is correct. I always encourage him to use proper pronunciation by using the correct words myself. I’m glad I’m not alone!
My sister-in-law used baby talk so often that her daughter, who is five, thinks purple is actually, “purpur”. I don’t want that lol
My now 3 year old used to call the pushchair the ‘chuffer’ as he couldn’t say pushchair. He now can and does call it the proper word but everyone else (me, partner and grandparents) still all call it the chuffer anyway!
Yes we now exclusively say “also too” because 2.5 says it. Also this thread has me mourning the lost toddlerisms like “dabies “ for blueberries and “cayayay” for carry.
Pepperonis are pepper-pa-monies. Shredded cheese is cheese sprinkles. All red sauces are ketchep, i.e. spaghetti ketchup, pizza ketchup. Butts are poopy spots. Cheerios are hippo-oos. And each and every dog in the universe is A Very Good Puppy Needs A Treat.
We regularly say and text "yayu" (YEAH-you) for "I love you" and "yayu yayu" for "I love you, too."
My HOH once-baby nephew who is now full grown coined that one and we still use it as a family.
Yes, and I look like a maniac at the store when I say outloud to my husband "okay, I'll go get the mook and you get the caulk-it, smunches, and chompies."
Lol yes-ceiling fans in our house are now called “wows”. They mesmerized her has an infant so we would point at them and say wow. Now that’s what she calls them.
We 100% say BAWL all day and even without him lmao everything that is a circle is a bawl too so it's really limited my vocabulary 🤣
We also use other words but he's really into BAWLS right now so it comes up often.
yes haha sooo many. his pacifiers are mamis and cats are mows and we ask where his wa wa is and talk about whether he wants to do yayo (yellow, but it means all colouring/drawing activities and tools) all toys are bubbles and twinkle twinkle is uppabaav. food is nani. we even ask each other if we want want mo and call each other daddy and mama it may be a problem lol.
One of my cats is named Morticia. My daughter started calling her Tissa when she started talking. I still call her Tissa and now my daughter corrects me.
My daughter's way to say "orange" is by FAR my favorite, it sounds french almost lol..."oij!"
She's 21 months old and has been saying SO much more lately, I love my little chatterbox ♥
Haha all the time. My daughter calls accessories, “ca-sess-ories” and I will absolutely accidentally say that when she’s not even around to other adults.
When my nephew was a toddler, he called spoons “spewns” and it’s still in our every day vocabulary, 8 years later. My niece also called pine cones pine corns. Now my kids are growing up hearing us say these things 😂
“Tickly milk” means cold milk. Works with chocolate milk too. At first I thought maybe he had a soy allergy (we use soy milk and only bought regular during the transition to solids), because he started using the term around when we switched. He started having more vocabulary and ability to express himself and I was able to talk to him about it and he told me it was tickly because it’s cold.
Not many, I try to say everything correctly so they learn easier.
I did adopt "mac n noodles with cheese" for Macaroni and cheese
I write the cute toddler words down and record videos to remember my favorites.
Exactly. I think by accident a couple times I've called get ducky her "quack quack" as she calls it, but otherwise I try to say everything by it's correct name so that she'll learn to say it in time correctly too.
Wawa for water
NaNa for Luna (cat). We've started calling her NaNa as well. Slides and swings are both wee. Side is outside. I'll ask her if she wants to go side. Nanna for banana
Oh yes 100%! When my toddler doesn’t want something he’s offered, he says “NOTE. Too big!” (“note” is “nope” lol)
I think my husband and I use the phrase more than he does 😂😂
Yes my toddler calls elevators alligators, and we renamed all the parks in our town we visit so she remembers which one is which. Train park, Clifford park, etc. Also, Umbrellas are Cumbrellas…no idea why?!
I try to use the real words and not toddler words. But my 3 year old calls hot dogs dot dogs so I call them that even to other people and poop is call a yucky every time now too. And I call my 3 year old bubba because that’s how my 20 month old says brother
Noodles are now noonoos, and macaroni & cheese is macnonis. They're cute & I just found myself using them. Some things we do correct her on, but she has a really good vocabulary/pronunciation at 2yo, and I like her still being a baby in some ways
Remember it is your job to teach them your language- not your job to learn theirs. When my 30 something nephew calls his aunt CeCe because he couldn’t say Lisa as a toddler it is so cringe. Sometimes these baby adaptations go on way to long and the kids are confused when they start school/daycare and no one else knows what baba or wawa is.
My son says mimi for baby. We used to say baby back but we just had his baby brother and call him mimi brother anytime we’re talking to him about the new baby. He also can’t say the d sound so instead of dad he says nan. Everyone in our house has grandma names except his actual grandma who’s just a different jumble of letters every time he talks about her 😂
My daughter has had special words for everything since she could talk.
Halloween Music- nightmare before Christmas
I know you- Princess Aurora
Pyia- Rapunzel
Those are the 3 that come to my head first. Any time I search for Nightmare Before Christmas, I always type in Halloween Music and can’t figure out why I can’t find what I’m looking for 😂🤣😂🤣
My daughter has a friend called Seb and for some reason she always calls him “Bez” I have to concentrate when saying his name so I don’t call him Bez as well.
My son says “lellow” instead of “yellow” and we absolutely use it all the time.
When my nephew was a toddler he called ketchup “keh-patch” and we still call it that!
My husband told the dog “Freja that’s yucky!!” We still laugh about it a couple years later. I also say “I luh you” now because that’s how my youngest says it. Pewghetti is another favorite of ours.
I'm 26 and my aunt still calls rotisserie chickens from Costco "slimy chicken" because that's what I called it as a toddler. Sometimes things just stick!
Absolutely. Lol.
And so do all of my other children. Even my oldest daughter’s boyfriend has caught on. I’ll overhear their conversations sometimes and I’ll hear things like “wook at dis” for look at this, or “wips” for lips. “Kiyitchu” for “I’m gonna get you” lol
Ours is 3, so he doesn't give us much to work with these days, but occasionally we'll throw in one from his early speaking days just for funsies. Today, after walking for an hour to get gelato and go to the package lockers, I suggested we all go home and "wigwax"—1.5-year-oldese for "relax".
Only if it's something she named herself.
I usually don't dumb down my language to my daughter at all, with the idea that it helps her language skills, but if she has a doll or an item she's given a name to (like how I call water-flavourers "squirty things", or how Goofy calls alphabet soup "Hi-Dad Soup"), then that becomes part of our language.
It's the difference between mispronunciations that will correct over time, vs personal colloquialisms.
Yess, mine is in Portuguese so I can't share any examples, but it became like slangs at home and with close friends. He makes verbs up and conjugations 😅
My four year old has her own names for all of the parks. So we have tunnel slide park, grassy park, duck park, train park etc. Weirdly the one park that is actually called Airplane park and has an airplane to climb on, is instead horsey park because it’s next to a horse paddock.
The saddest day is when they stop pronouncing things incorrectly! My oldest is nearly 4 and about to graduate from toddlerhood. In the last year her pronunciation, and ability to recognize she is saying it wrong and to reattempt until she has got it right, has just grown and grown. So exciting seeing her grow, but so sad to leave the baby behind.
She still calls a mirror 'primbra' so we will ride that one as long as possible.
Drink: dink
Food: bite bite
Diaper change: get your butts or just "butts?"
Blanket: ni night
There's tons more i just can't think of any for the life of me. But we use toddler words even when our toddler is asleep. Send help 🤣
My kiddo doesn't quite have her pronouns down, so we've got gems like:
>Don't worry, them will come back for him.
>Him going to find him doodlebug family!
>Them are missing them heads!
>Her doesn't want to cos her is just doesn't want to!
It's adorable and our grammar is regressing as a family. :)
We do this “ let’s go to the BIG ROOM”, “no the special blanket” or “no the new blanket” <- which is a blanket we got a year ago. Lol We’ve also been walking around saying “I know dat” because he is responding to everything we say with that lately.
Chickum. I still say chickums and I asked my family to also say it because I wanted to have some "baby" words that didn't immediately phase out. She does say chicken now sometimes but also chickums.
I use a lot of silly words. (Instead of crumbs I say greebles) Etc etc. so she has so many. I should make a list again.
not really. I do sometimes use the word she knows, for example, “creek“ instead of “river“ or “stream“. Or “Potty” for “toilet”. Or. sometimes if I’m introducing a new piece of headwear like a helmet or a hairband I will use the word “hat“ because she knows it, at first. And we do the standard abbreviations like “jammies“ for pajamas.
My toddler calls bathing suit, “baby soup” so that’s what it’s called now lol Also “peejees” for pj’s.
Baby soup!!! That’s adorable.
Lol, like this, my daughter calls a suitcase a 'soup case'. I can't help but laugh every time she says it thinking of a big case filled with soup
I’m an adult and have called it a baby soup on my own since college lol
Baby soup 😭😭 that is so freaking adorable
It melts my heart every time 😭
Omg my younger sister used to say baby soup too lol it’s so adorable
Aww my niece used to call it baby suit! 🥹
And my son calls pajamas “pamas”
That’s so cute! We call them swimmy suits because that’s what my daughter says.
Mine calls it her bacon soup
We call waffles woohoos now because that word is just more fun. I’ve also switched to saying “turn the dark on” instead of turn the lights off because that’s what my 2yo says.
Love this take lol. Their words are a lot more fun!
My daughter invented “tomorning” and I use it all the time because everyone already can figure out I mean “tomorrow morning” I don’t even have to explain it. She would also say, “I can’t want to!” Which can be very accurate.
Is she Australian? I feel like this is something that would work very well here. Arvo is afternoon. To say "this afternoon" it is just shortened to "sarvo"..lol
It’s funny, because it’s the English languisce version of the Italian “Domattina”🤣🤣🤣
Haha I love that! Yup, “lay over” means to rolls one’s body over for us.
We call them awfuls 😂
Absolutely. If there’s a toddler word for an item, we almost exclusively use that. She calls swings “wees” because that’s the sound you make on the swing, so we all call them wees now. We always add the real word so she knows it, but yea. Shes call popsicles: “POP!”and claps her hands when she says it, so now popsicles are exclusively POP[handclap]! There’s too many examples in our house of it, but basically every toddlerism is something we say.
When I want my toddler to smile, I told him to say Eeeee! Rather than cheese because he couldn't say cheese yet or still. But he says Eeeee now. And I love it.
What you don’t know now is that some of these will still be in your family lexicon when your daughter is 35.
I’m laughing because my family STILL calls spaghetti “pisketti” because of my sister saying that 30 years ago. 😂
My son calls the swing “weeee?” too!!!
Question mark because he’s always asking to go on it
I know this demand ALL TOO WELL, ours is OBSESSED. He calls it a gwing or just wing, though.
Okay “Whees” is an amazing term and I will be stealing that!
A slide is a Weeeee in our house
Slides are “doooooown” for us.
Toddlerisms are pretty adorable!
We incorporate these all the time, and I love it so much. It's like our own little family inside jokes. My daughter couldn't say L's for a long time, so any L word gets changed to a Y. Like "yegs" instead of legs. Adorable.
My toddler calls her sister “A-yea-yeah” instead of Aurelia.
We have an unintentional tradition in my family where all of us siblings' nicknames are based on what the kid you get than them called them when they learned to talk. So we have Keka, Bubby, Bean, Sessa, Mimi, and Kaykay. The youngest of us is 20 this summer and we all still address each other by these.
All the time. It was easy to avoid baby talk when we were doing all the talking but once you hear a word 50 times a day it’s hard to get it out of your head.
Right?? I don’t really speak in “baby talk” to her either so I didn’t expect this to happen lol
Lol yes. I didn't do it intentionally but I find myself calling his pacifier his baba and offering wawa to him. Lol and then my husband and I even will spell out b-a-b-a if we don't want him to catch on.
Mine call it their pasha, so we do, too.
Our toddler basically renamed our dog
Hahah so did mine! She didn’t say many animals by names at first and every animal was whatever the sound it made was. So all dogs were “woof woof” and she referred to our dog as woof woof for sooo long so now we call him woof woof 😂😂. She just turned 2 and can talk much better now and can say his actual name but 9/10 times she still calls him woof woof!
For a long time all dogs were "Sit!" *raises arms* Adorable watching a 10 month old trying to command dogs 4 times his size
There was one day our dogs were being jerks so I jokingly told her ‘they’re being bad puppies!’ And she repeated ‘bad puppa!’ So now the dogs are puppas.
Ours looks like a potato and so she went with “tato” and now she’s just tato 😂
Us too! His name is Copper but we pretty much only call him Coppo now.
Our dog’s name is Alice… our daughter is 13 months and has been calling her “Lala”. So she is now always going to be Lala.
We still sometimes call coffee “coffeet” in my family bc that’s what my little sister (now 30) called it. It’s like the inside joke that never dies (or gets old).
When my sister was little, she called naps “nannies”. It’s persevered for about 25 years in our family, and my husband and I use it now too (with our toddler and without). Tbh I could use a nanny right now 😮💨
Omg BOTH kind of nannies 😆
Same here! My parents still pronounce carrots the same way my 42yo brother did when he was little :) My parents also now say "ah-gogo" for avocado like my toddler.
Haha, “cado” for us
Omg someone else(other than. My toddler) adds a T to the end of a lot of words 🤣
Stickwhip (lipstick). Chompsticks. Chicka Flay. Picture towels, babe in soup, kank you. Lasterday, tomorrio. Lawn the grass. To say these things right sounds wrong.
Babe in soup, how cute!!!
Lasterday haha mine says “last day” when she means yesterday
Love stickwhip!!
Wait what’s a picture towel 😭 I love these so much
Hee Hoo is thank you in our house
I ordered “pasta with shaky cheese” in a restaurant one time and the server and I shared a very awkward pause before I remembered I’m an adult and corrected myself to “parmesan.”
I try so hard to avoid baby talk because I know that regular language use is better for development. But my baby is so cute and small that I end up saying baby talk stuff like, instinctually. I really don’t mean to! If I catch myself, I then re-state it regularly, but sometimes I overcorrect and go really formal. So, conversations go like this: “Iss time for milk-milk! Iss time for milk-milk! Milk-milk and then sweepy time. Sweepy sweepy time for my little one. Go sweepy, have happy dreams. Go sweepy— Oh shit. It is food time. You are going to receive nourishment. I am going to breastfeed you. Henceforth afterwards, you will fall dormant. It is possible you may experience dreams. I cannot confirm or deny if they will be enjoyable.”
Omg this is too funny! I just pictured that whole scene (sorry OP I made up a generic woman for ya) and if my kid wasn’t just put down for bed I’d be howling.
I really think it's just their influence. I always try to speak to her in the correct words but you just hear them say it so much it's hard to get it out of your head.
Yes, we only eat cucumbumber in this house
Coopumber here 😊
When my husband gets home, one of our kids goes "How is work doing?" and now that's how I ask him how his day was.
My toddler calls sunscreen sour cream. Now even extended family calls sunscreen sour cream LOL
I have two toddlers at different ages in speech development, so we have many of these at our house. My 1.5yo will loudly exclaim “Giw!!” and point at our dog (aka good girl) so we’ve all just started calling her “Girl.” Another favorite is “beeda-button” (belly button). When my other son was almost 2, he referred to my boobs as “beeda-buttons” and I still don’t have the heart to correct him yet. Lol
My son tries to say okie dokie but it comes out as “gnocchi gnocchi” and he tried to say I will be (like when we say be careful) but it comes out as “I be will” and my husband and I just say these things now
We drink a lot of sparkling/seltzer water, but it is now forevermore "spicy water" when we talk about it or add it to the grocery list
We call it spicy water too and if he gets a sip he goes “ooooh spicy”
Yes same!!
We also say spicy water!! Ahah
My husband thought I was saying “baby linguine” when I was saying baby-led weaning. So now baby has baby linguine lol
Yep, mine comes up with some great little phrases and words and I can’t help but to say them and smile.
Yup. French fries are “dem whys”, probably forever now.
Mack-a-noknee for macaroni
Yes. We call chocolate choc-chic, and asparagus is spiraletta. I’ll never give those up
Opticalpus = octopus Sneakers = Snickers (from Bluey) Adorable Cat = what he calls our cat, but he says it with fear.
Omg my toddler has caterpillar crocs we call his crocapillars and it’s so hard not to laugh when he’s like “I want to wear my crocapillars!” while being upset
I bet the cat told him to, “or else” 😼
Monkeys = ooh ooh ahh ahh's lol exclusively
Omg that’s what we saw about our stuffed money too lol! And when she sees a doggy she pants all excited
I still use toddler words my little sister used. She's 27 years old 🤣
A favorite right now is "beedo" for burrito.
My toddler used to say this 🥲 sad day when she pronounced it. We used to say “wrap you like a burrito” when she got out of the bath and she started picking up on it saying “wrap like a beedo”
Yes, do some reason the shears of foam-ish packing paper that comes in some packages took the name of “Cloakus” for our little girl. I never had a name for it before (hence the “foam-ish packing paper”), so now it’s Cloakus, and it’s her favorite part of any package we receive. The other day I wake my wife if we needed to get some Cloakus to wrap an around a picture frame we’re packing. She knew exactly what I meant.
My husband and I will say his words to each other and to him as well as mixing it up with the proper pronunciation. But I think it's validating to him hearing us acknowledge and speak his speak. For the life of us, we still don't know wtf "Bo-Dice" is. "Tradgers" or "Chens!" Are tractors or train videos on YouTube. we will say "do you want to watch some tradgers?" He's really into telling us ownership names right now and my folks and us repeat it back too. Example: he will point at chair and say "Gigi's cheeair" and "daddy's twools" It's cute as heck
My kid has said “bittycomb” forever and we have no idea what it means 😭 when we ask her “but what does that mean??” She just laughs like a lunatic and walks away. Now she’ll even say “bittycomb bittycomb bittycomb…BuT wHaT doEs iT mEaN?” then laugh like she’s the funniest person ever.
My toddler just said dinosaur instead of dinodoo yesterday and I almost cried. We’re at the end of an era 😭
Spoon -> “poon” Fork -> “foon” Change bum -> “choo bum” Clean -> “keen keen” TV -> “fee-see” Yoghurt -> “yog-UT” Just to name a few of our favourites. My wife and I use them all the time even when talking to each other without our toddler around sometimes 😂🤦🏻♂️
Hahah I always used to say “let’s change your diapie -doo” and I never realized I said it often enough that the other day she said “Mama! Diapie-Doo” hahaha and now I love it that and calls them that! Same with that I apparently regularly call naps “nappy noodle” so I said “let’s go have a nappy noodle” and she relied “no nappy noodle!” Hahah it’s just so cute!
Yep, his dummy was called his “pop”. I’d talk to grown adults and say “we’re weaning him off his pop” to some weird looks.
My toddler calls bunnies "bop-bops" and boo boos are "bee-boos". That is just what these things are called now.
My daughter refused to say rabbit or bunny for the longest time and would only call them “hop hop”. Her emotional support stuffed animal is a bunny whose name is forever “hop hop” now and I love it!
Sharks are called “doo-doos” in our house… and unfortunately, out the house too. Nothing like walking through the store with a 2 yo loudly asking for her “doo doo!” 😂
My 2 1/2 year old says “ready, steady, go!” I refuse to correct him because it’s the most adorable thing ever!
Ready, steady, Fredy! Doesn’t matter what his name is.
Teddy grahams will forever be known as cookie bears in my house. My aunt Stephanie is now aunt sesame.
Oh course. Her favourite character on Sesame Street is Abby Coodabby and you can bet we both say that as often as possible.
Oh in our house queen Abby is Abby Dabby
Yes, we call blueberries booba now thanks to our toddler lol
Mine calls them “booby”
Forever boobas!
Frinkles= Sprinkles forever in this house
My 10 year old nephew is named Andrew but my toddler calls him An Dew so now the entire family calls him that. Luckily he thinks it’s funny.
Omg my 18mo old is OBSESSED with “bawls” and it’s so cute how he says it 😭😭 I’m at work right now and this made me think of him, I miss him now
Lol my kiddos love Chick-fil-a sauce and I buy the bottles from the store. Anyway, in our house it’s called “yellow sauce” and a few days ago when I was placing our grocery pick up order I typed in “yellow sauce” and was confused as to why they didn’t have any 😂
A family/home must be a special kinda sad if they don’t have any inside jokes/silly language, even without kids. I and my husband have so many things like saying “dog the walk” or “dog the pee” for no reason… Countless stupid words and phrases that we forget many of their origins.
My husband and I had/have so many too! They’re fun until you’re fighting and need to ask them for something and can’t remember the real name and have to try to say “do you know where the cutie-doodys are?” with a serious tone.
Not really, although I'm always tempted to since it's so cute 😅 I've found it really helps with language development if you still pronounce the words properly around them
We pronounce things properly too since I also feel like it helps a lot, but it’s SO tempting to say them their way. It’s so so cute. 🤣
We use words normally too and it definitely helps with speech and vocabulary. Baby talk is super cute though 😩❤️
My favorite right now is "caaalerpitter" for caterpillar, it's so hard not to repeat it that way
My toddler used to call those patterbutters, he says it right now and I miss it lol 🥺
I love it. My two-year-old calls chemicals “keh-mer-ker” and it cracks me up! But like comment op, I don’t want him thinking baby talk is correct. I always encourage him to use proper pronunciation by using the correct words myself. I’m glad I’m not alone! My sister-in-law used baby talk so often that her daughter, who is five, thinks purple is actually, “purpur”. I don’t want that lol
My now 3 year old used to call the pushchair the ‘chuffer’ as he couldn’t say pushchair. He now can and does call it the proper word but everyone else (me, partner and grandparents) still all call it the chuffer anyway!
The only thing I've ever really wanted to say that my toddler says is belly nipple instead of belly button. The way she says things changes.
My son likes to jump on the kangaroo aka trampoline.
Yep I now call mosquitos,Ski-toes
Popsicles will always be pop-is-cools.
Yes we now exclusively say “also too” because 2.5 says it. Also this thread has me mourning the lost toddlerisms like “dabies “ for blueberries and “cayayay” for carry.
Pepperonis are pepper-pa-monies. Shredded cheese is cheese sprinkles. All red sauces are ketchep, i.e. spaghetti ketchup, pizza ketchup. Butts are poopy spots. Cheerios are hippo-oos. And each and every dog in the universe is A Very Good Puppy Needs A Treat.
We frequently talk like our toddler. His phrase for a while was “uhhhh…. *no* & uhhhhh…. Ok?” so we use it to answer one another.
We regularly say and text "yayu" (YEAH-you) for "I love you" and "yayu yayu" for "I love you, too." My HOH once-baby nephew who is now full grown coined that one and we still use it as a family.
Yes, and I look like a maniac at the store when I say outloud to my husband "okay, I'll go get the mook and you get the caulk-it, smunches, and chompies."
My husband and I have formally adopted “goggles” to mean glasses or sunglasses. We even say it to other adults before we catch ourselves.
Oh yes. Haha I love it. Like a family inside joke.
Lol yes-ceiling fans in our house are now called “wows”. They mesmerized her has an infant so we would point at them and say wow. Now that’s what she calls them.
Not all of them but some for sure! Bunnies are bummies, and blueberries are booies in our house.
Hanitizer will live in our house forever. Along with blanklet
All. The. Time. Jammies = Deebees, Wawater = watermelon, etc.
We 100% say BAWL all day and even without him lmao everything that is a circle is a bawl too so it's really limited my vocabulary 🤣 We also use other words but he's really into BAWLS right now so it comes up often.
She hit me with "Bluey and Mango!" the other day, now Bingo is forever Mango
yes haha sooo many. his pacifiers are mamis and cats are mows and we ask where his wa wa is and talk about whether he wants to do yayo (yellow, but it means all colouring/drawing activities and tools) all toys are bubbles and twinkle twinkle is uppabaav. food is nani. we even ask each other if we want want mo and call each other daddy and mama it may be a problem lol.
My toddler said „bood“ for book and that’s what we call it now even though she calls it books now. Time flies!
One of my cats is named Morticia. My daughter started calling her Tissa when she started talking. I still call her Tissa and now my daughter corrects me.
"Ank oo" for "thank you" and "nummy" for "dummy" are our two favourites. Oh, and "pototoh" for "Pocoyo" 😂
We came here "a couple whiles ago" is our new form of telling time.
My daughter's way to say "orange" is by FAR my favorite, it sounds french almost lol..."oij!" She's 21 months old and has been saying SO much more lately, I love my little chatterbox ♥
My 1.5 year old called his pacifier his doodle😅 my husband still calls it a pacifier but I've committed to doodle🤣
As soon as my 1.5 year old hears a plane he says "pane pane pane"😅
Haha all the time. My daughter calls accessories, “ca-sess-ories” and I will absolutely accidentally say that when she’s not even around to other adults.
When my nephew was a toddler, he called spoons “spewns” and it’s still in our every day vocabulary, 8 years later. My niece also called pine cones pine corns. Now my kids are growing up hearing us say these things 😂
“Tickly milk” means cold milk. Works with chocolate milk too. At first I thought maybe he had a soy allergy (we use soy milk and only bought regular during the transition to solids), because he started using the term around when we switched. He started having more vocabulary and ability to express himself and I was able to talk to him about it and he told me it was tickly because it’s cold.
‘Baby snuggle / snuggle mama’ ‘**WuhWoahs** (Bread)’ ‘Peanut -Ah- Butters (peanutbutter). ‘Paper’s (diaper)’. ‘Mommy two’ (grandma). ‘Stet-ter (our cat Sylvester), among many more. I love toddler talk 🥹
Mommy two 🩷 grandma must love that haha
Not many, I try to say everything correctly so they learn easier. I did adopt "mac n noodles with cheese" for Macaroni and cheese I write the cute toddler words down and record videos to remember my favorites.
The only expression I use from my toddler is to call mac and cheese "cheesy noodles".
Exactly. I think by accident a couple times I've called get ducky her "quack quack" as she calls it, but otherwise I try to say everything by it's correct name so that she'll learn to say it in time correctly too.
Wawa for water NaNa for Luna (cat). We've started calling her NaNa as well. Slides and swings are both wee. Side is outside. I'll ask her if she wants to go side. Nanna for banana
We definitely do this. Tomamos for lunch, now time to put on our baby suits and go to the beach!
My son called his iPad his game when he was little. I caught myself saying it again just recently. Six years later.
Oh yes 100%! When my toddler doesn’t want something he’s offered, he says “NOTE. Too big!” (“note” is “nope” lol) I think my husband and I use the phrase more than he does 😂😂
I say Wawa all the time. To everyone. And I’ve called my dad, “daddy” and we both look at each other like 😝
My LO calls bananas 'nanoos' and noodles 'noonies' so that's what me and my husband call them 😂
Yup. Sparkling water= spicy water
All the time. Also my niece who is now 18, when she was tiny would call soap "bb soap". I still call it bb soap because it's too precious to forget
Absolutely. I’ll cry the day my son stops calling French fries “gench guys” or the aquarium the “kaquarium”
My 2yo says “pawsha” when he tries to say applesauce 😂🥰
Mac-ees for Mac and cheese. He stopped doing it a long time ago but I don't think I ever will.
Yes my toddler calls elevators alligators, and we renamed all the parks in our town we visit so she remembers which one is which. Train park, Clifford park, etc. Also, Umbrellas are Cumbrellas…no idea why?!
I say uh oh whenever something falls, minor mess up, etc. No matter where I am. Toddler is 22 months.
I try to use the real words and not toddler words. But my 3 year old calls hot dogs dot dogs so I call them that even to other people and poop is call a yucky every time now too. And I call my 3 year old bubba because that’s how my 20 month old says brother
Toddler calls vitamins “beanies”. “Can I have a beanie?!”.
Noodles are now noonoos, and macaroni & cheese is macnonis. They're cute & I just found myself using them. Some things we do correct her on, but she has a really good vocabulary/pronunciation at 2yo, and I like her still being a baby in some ways
Remember it is your job to teach them your language- not your job to learn theirs. When my 30 something nephew calls his aunt CeCe because he couldn’t say Lisa as a toddler it is so cringe. Sometimes these baby adaptations go on way to long and the kids are confused when they start school/daycare and no one else knows what baba or wawa is.
My son says mimi for baby. We used to say baby back but we just had his baby brother and call him mimi brother anytime we’re talking to him about the new baby. He also can’t say the d sound so instead of dad he says nan. Everyone in our house has grandma names except his actual grandma who’s just a different jumble of letters every time he talks about her 😂
My daughter has had special words for everything since she could talk. Halloween Music- nightmare before Christmas I know you- Princess Aurora Pyia- Rapunzel Those are the 3 that come to my head first. Any time I search for Nightmare Before Christmas, I always type in Halloween Music and can’t figure out why I can’t find what I’m looking for 😂🤣😂🤣
My daughter has a friend called Seb and for some reason she always calls him “Bez” I have to concentrate when saying his name so I don’t call him Bez as well.
My toddler says “mimmits” instead of “minutes.” We sometimes slip and say it wrong. I’ve tried to correct the kid but it never sticks.
My son says “lellow” instead of “yellow” and we absolutely use it all the time. When my nephew was a toddler he called ketchup “keh-patch” and we still call it that!
My son calls granola bars mama, so now we only refer to them as that. And pacpac instead of backpack 🥹
My husband told the dog “Freja that’s yucky!!” We still laugh about it a couple years later. I also say “I luh you” now because that’s how my youngest says it. Pewghetti is another favorite of ours.
If you’re playing, you can be “being a tend”. If you’re not, you “be a real”.
Yes! I say “walah” for water and “Eela-eela-lo” when we’re singing Old McDonald 😆
I'm 26 and my aunt still calls rotisserie chickens from Costco "slimy chicken" because that's what I called it as a toddler. Sometimes things just stick!
Cars are tuta. (He heard an ambulance a few times that made a tuta sound without seeing it and then all cars became tuta) Food is hamjamjam.
We call railroad crossing signals “ding ding things” and I literally had to google them to write this comment because I forgot the real words 😂
Absolutely. Lol. And so do all of my other children. Even my oldest daughter’s boyfriend has caught on. I’ll overhear their conversations sometimes and I’ll hear things like “wook at dis” for look at this, or “wips” for lips. “Kiyitchu” for “I’m gonna get you” lol
I said "yay" at work the other day.
Ours is 3, so he doesn't give us much to work with these days, but occasionally we'll throw in one from his early speaking days just for funsies. Today, after walking for an hour to get gelato and go to the package lockers, I suggested we all go home and "wigwax"—1.5-year-oldese for "relax".
Only if it's something she named herself. I usually don't dumb down my language to my daughter at all, with the idea that it helps her language skills, but if she has a doll or an item she's given a name to (like how I call water-flavourers "squirty things", or how Goofy calls alphabet soup "Hi-Dad Soup"), then that becomes part of our language. It's the difference between mispronunciations that will correct over time, vs personal colloquialisms.
Yess, mine is in Portuguese so I can't share any examples, but it became like slangs at home and with close friends. He makes verbs up and conjugations 😅
Banas, jamas, woaf, scugz, mommy baf/daddy baf, pat you, and poof have all made their way into my vocabulary.
My four year old has her own names for all of the parks. So we have tunnel slide park, grassy park, duck park, train park etc. Weirdly the one park that is actually called Airplane park and has an airplane to climb on, is instead horsey park because it’s next to a horse paddock.
My 4 year old has called her drink a "Doot" since she was 1, we have no idea where the term came from. Now we all call our water bottles "Doot".
Over 20 years later, my family still calls belly buttons, button its bc of me
The saddest day is when they stop pronouncing things incorrectly! My oldest is nearly 4 and about to graduate from toddlerhood. In the last year her pronunciation, and ability to recognize she is saying it wrong and to reattempt until she has got it right, has just grown and grown. So exciting seeing her grow, but so sad to leave the baby behind. She still calls a mirror 'primbra' so we will ride that one as long as possible.
Drink: dink Food: bite bite Diaper change: get your butts or just "butts?" Blanket: ni night There's tons more i just can't think of any for the life of me. But we use toddler words even when our toddler is asleep. Send help 🤣
My kiddo doesn't quite have her pronouns down, so we've got gems like: >Don't worry, them will come back for him. >Him going to find him doodlebug family! >Them are missing them heads! >Her doesn't want to cos her is just doesn't want to! It's adorable and our grammar is regressing as a family. :)
I said me hungee and call an octopus appatow
We do this “ let’s go to the BIG ROOM”, “no the special blanket” or “no the new blanket” <- which is a blanket we got a year ago. Lol We’ve also been walking around saying “I know dat” because he is responding to everything we say with that lately.
We say: I gotta tee tee Oh, poo poo! Snack, please! THAR YA ARE (there you are!) Go way! (Go away)
Chickum. I still say chickums and I asked my family to also say it because I wanted to have some "baby" words that didn't immediately phase out. She does say chicken now sometimes but also chickums. I use a lot of silly words. (Instead of crumbs I say greebles) Etc etc. so she has so many. I should make a list again.
Yes but not mispronunciations because I don’t want t9 encourage that
not really. I do sometimes use the word she knows, for example, “creek“ instead of “river“ or “stream“. Or “Potty” for “toilet”. Or. sometimes if I’m introducing a new piece of headwear like a helmet or a hairband I will use the word “hat“ because she knows it, at first. And we do the standard abbreviations like “jammies“ for pajamas.
my 3 year old calls oatmeal “oat-en-yo” it’s adorable and i say it too
I try not to but he says "boops" instead of "boots", how am I supposed to resist that? I don't want him to learn the correct pronunciation!