Talking to my child in front of people who speak English vs. people who do not speak English

This Christmas we have been traveling around the North and East of Switzerland. How beautiful everything was! And how cold!

One of the days we visited Zurich and we used the opportunity to meet some Swiss friends who live there. We had a great time. It always feels good to spend some time chatting with people with whom you share things. In addition, we introduced our son to them, as they didn't know him yet.

The Swiss couple that we met speak German, but we spent all the afternoon speaking in English. They even talked to my little one in English, which was great. They spoke a lot to him and said a couple of cute things in German. That was very funny to me, because I repeated those things, although I had no idea what I was saying. It was fun and it was really nice to be able to communicate in a language with which we all felt comfortable and could express ourselves perfectly.

And what was the best of all? That, in this situation, speaking to my son in English felt very natural to me.

Around me, many people speak English well. However, some relatives and friends do not master it or do not speak English at all. Personally, I think that this is not a problem to continue to bring up my baby bilingually without being native. However, I have to say that I have different feelings talking to my son depending on being surrounded by people who speak English or being surrounded by people who don't.

What will native English speakers think about my experience? Fears and doubts

The first few times I thought about having children and speaking to them in English, I had the main ideas clear and very few doubts. It seemed to me that it made sense, that it was interesting and that, just as I talk to my students or to other people in English, I would do it with my son. All the questions and doubts came when I started. I had my son in my arms and I was going to start speaking to him in English all the time.

How to overcome challenges talking to your children in a foreign language

Raising children is not an easy task. It is stimulating, exciting, thrilling... one of the greatest experiences that we can have, but definitely: not simple. Sometimes we don't know if what we are doing is right or wrong and the future scare us a bit. However, we improve day by day and we try to do our best to bring up our offspring safely, healthily and affectionately.

The parents that want to speak in English or in any other language to their children since they are little, without being native in that language, add new challenges. While bringing up nonnative bilingual children, parents may go through different periods that can be anticipated.

I would like to hear my baby saying something to see if I am doing right

When do babies start saying their first conscious words? I have read that this happens around the end of the first year of life. Although some babies don't say anything until they are thirteen months old.
My son has already said 'mama' a few times but this has just been unconscious babbling.
I wonder what will be the first things that he will say. Will he say something in Spanish or in English?
It's been six months now that I am talking to him in nonnative English all the time and I can't wait to start hearing him speaking.
The development of everyone's speech is a long process. I am looking forward to discovering with my own baby how it happens.

Where does my passion for bilingualism come from?

The love, passion or interest for languages comes to each one of us in a different way. In my case, it was something that didn't come from me at the beginning. It came from my environment. It wasn't me the one who started to have the need of speaking other languages or the one who wanted to learn a new language for fun and pleasure. It was the people around me and the places where I lived the ones that took me towards this knowledge of second languages. And it was later on, when I grew up, when I started to make an effort to improve them. This time, of my own accord.

Babbling, 6 months old and first unconscious word

My baby is 6 months old and he is very cute and charming. He is thriving very well. I am enjoying very much playing with him and staring at him all the time. It is incredible the intense and beautiful feelings that a child can awake.

I am going to write a quick summary of my son's thriving, although just by watching the video uploaded on YouTube you can easily see that we are still in the beginning of this bilingual experience.

The video has different moments where my son is babbling and playing. Sometimes we are in the kitchen, others in the living room or the car. Although we record videos very often (as good first-time parents) these last two months he hasn’t been speaking a lot. He is in a ‘silent mode’. It has been a long time that I can’t hear him having the super-conversations that he used to have when he was three or four months old. I guess he has moved from the first babbling, that were just instinctive reflexes, to this new babbling that helps him test his vocal cords and his hearing skills. Now it is sure that he can hear himself and that sometimes he shouts or makes sounds because he needs something or feels uncomfortable and he wants to let me know.

Why didn't I talk to my baby in English while I was pregnant?

While I was pregnant I didn’t talk to my baby in English. I talked to him in Spanish. It was a very difficult pregnancy and I had other things on my mind. I didn’t want to spend time thinking about the language that I would use to talk to him when he would be born.

If things would have happened normally, my baby would have heard me speaking in English everyday as I am a teacher and a training teacher of English and I talk many hours a day in this language. However, during my pregnancy I wasn’t working neither was I in an English speaking environment. So my son didn’t hear much English in my belly.

It is true that the reasons that I had to raise my child in a bilingual way were there, but, as I had questions about the way of doing it and I couldn’t find much information about it, I just left it aside for a while.

If my pregnancy would have been a normal one, would I have talked to my baby in my belly?

7 feelings raising a non native bilingual child when he is six months old

My bilingual baby is already six months old. He is absolutely cute, fun and lovely. What can I say...? Since he was three months old I am enjoying so much when he laughs, when he babbles, when he sleeps, when he eats, when he looks at me, when he cries if I leave the room... He is a baby with a lot of energy and he is developing and growing up very well. Before, everything was also wonderful but the way he is able to interact with me now cannot be expressed in words.

As you can see if you follow the blog, the family experience parenting our child in English being nonnative speakers continues. As I wrote in a previous post, since he was two months old I am speaking to him in non-native English and his dad in native Spanish. It was a bit hard the first month due to the lack of vocabulary and self-confidence. But since then, I talk to him all the time in English (except those times that my baby got too fussy).

Now that the summer is gone and we are back to our daily routine I can relax a bit and concentrate myself on all the feelings and thoughts that I have on my mind.

Other people talking to my son in English

I have just made a trip around Belgium. It is the first long trip that we do with our son. Seven days eating at restaurants, driving the car, sleeping in hotels... with a three moth baby! Well, I have to say it has been a great experience full of positive things. The baby has behaved perfectly even during the long hours by car, he was just fantastic. He only had a bad moment in a restaurant. He couldn't stop crying very loud. He didn't want to sleep, he didn't want to eat... who knows what he needed. But other than that, he did very well.

First day speaking in English in front of friends

Today has been a very important day. For the first time I have spoken to my son in English while being with other people.

It has been some weeks that  I wanted to meet some friends and I have finally done it. My friends and I have meet to have a coffee and chat a bit. One of them is expecting a baby and the other two have one baby too. Can you guess what did we talk about? Of course! Babies’ clothes, food, toys, gadgets... you always learn new things from your friends.

My son 'speaking'. 3 months old.

I feel more and more motivated to start this adventure. I speak to my son almost all the time in English. He is three months old (corrected age, as he was premature) and he has started to recognize my voice and he interacts with me when I sing or speak to him.

Learning specific vocab

 I have started to talk to my son a lot in English this last week. I'm singing songs to him and every time I'm alone with him, I only speak to him in English. As I told you before

I don't know why, but I still feel shy doing it in front of my husband or with other people. For now I am not worried, I know I will have confidence to do it soon. Moreover my soon is starting to interact with me. when I am singing, when I smile and laugh or when I touch his face he starts smiling or making sounds too.

Reasons for this decision

If one thing doesn't need any explanation is that parents want the best for their children and they are going to do all they can for them. There are some that have money or that are making a huge effort to save it and provide their children with a bilingual education in private schools; other ones, do all they can so their children can go to certain public schools that have lots of English classes; some spend their holidays in England to get immersed in the language and culture... We do what we can and what we think is the best. I can speak English, for the moment this is what I am going to provide to my son.

For me, there are some important reasons to bring up my son bilingual speaking in Spanish and English.

First,

Reasons for this decision

If one thing doesn't need any explanation is that parents want the best for their children and they are going to do all they can for them. There are some that have money or that are making a huge effort to save it and provide their children with a bilingual education in private schools; other ones, do all they can so their children can go to certain public schools that have lots of English classes; some spend their holidays in England to get immersed in the language and culture... We do what we can and what we think is the best. I can speak English, for the moment this is what I am going to provide to my son.

For me, there are some important reasons to bring up my son bilingual speaking in Spanish and English.

First,

American vs.British English

Today I have run into an unexpected issue regarding speaking in English to my son.

This morning I have been with some friends and I have told them that I want to talk to my child in English.
They all have encouraged me to do it and that

Today is the day, or maybe tomorrow...

It has been two weeks since I said these words for the first time. 

I had definitely decided to raise my child in English and that was the day to start speaking to him in English. Somedays before I had started