When Do Babies Start Cooing? Early Sounds Timeline

Most babies start cooing at around two months old, making soft, drawn out vowel sounds like ooh and aah, which are the first gentle step in language development and come well before the consonant filled babbling that arrives around four to six months.

That first little coo, a soft ooh or aah aimed right at your face, is one of the sweetest early milestones. It is also meaningful: cooing is your baby’s first experiment with their own voice and the opening move in learning to talk.

This guide explains when cooing typically begins, how it differs from crying and later babbling, what it tells you about your baby’s development, and how to gently encourage more of it.

When Cooing Usually Starts

For most babies, cooing appears around the two month mark, though some start a couple of weeks earlier and others a little later. It often shows up alongside another beloved milestone, the first real social smile, because both reflect your baby waking up to the social world and wanting to connect with you.

Cooing is different from your baby’s earliest sounds, which are mostly crying and reflexive noises like grunts and sighs. A coo is voluntary and relaxed, a happy vowel sound your baby makes when content, often while gazing at a familiar face.

Age	What you typically hear
Birth to 6 weeks	Crying, grunts, sighs, and other reflexive sounds.
Around 2 months	Cooing: soft, drawn out vowel sounds like ooh and aah.
3 to 4 months	More varied coos, chuckles, squeals, and the first laughs.
4 to 6 months	Early babbling: consonant sounds like ba and ga appear.
6 to 9 months	Canonical babbling: repeated strings like bababa and dadada.

Cooing, Crying, and Babbling: What Is the Difference

It helps to think of these as stages that build on each other. Crying is your baby’s first communication, present from birth. Cooing comes next and is made of vowel sounds, the gentle music of a young baby discovering their voice. Babbling arrives later and adds consonants, which require more coordinated control of the lips, tongue, and breath, giving it that speech like ba-ba-ba quality.

Each stage is a rehearsal for talking. When you coo back at your baby and pause for them to respond, you are teaching the rhythm of conversation, the back and forth that all language rests on.

How to Encourage Your Baby to Coo

The best thing you can do is treat your baby as a conversation partner. When they coo, coo back, then wait. This serve and return teaches them that their sounds matter and invites more. Get close, make eye contact, and use the warm, sing song voice that babies find so engaging.

• Respond to every coo as if it were a word, then pause for a turn.
• Talk and narrate your day so your baby hears lots of language.
• Make eye contact and smile, since cooing is deeply social.
• Read and sing daily, even to a very young baby.
• Give plenty of calm, screen free floor and cuddle time for face to face play.

When to Talk to Your Pediatrician

Ranges are wide, and a baby who is a little behind on cooing is often just fine. Still, it is worth checking in with your pediatrician if your baby is not making any sounds or cooing by around three months, is not smiling socially, does not react to loud sounds, or seems not to make eye contact. These early checks help make sure hearing and development are on track.

Cooing is the first chapter of a longer language story. See what comes next in our guide on when babies start babbling, and explore the wider picture in our toddler milestones guide. If new sounds seem to stir up night wakings, our sleep regression ages guide explains why development and sleep often overlap.

Frequently Asked Questions