This week David Carey, Moncrieff's Parenting expert, deals with a number of parenting questions.

Here's how he dealt with one of our listeners' questions this week:

"What would you recommend doing about a nearly 5 year old who still talks in baby language. It started after his little brother was born but that was 2 years ago. It drives me crazy especially when he does it in public. I’ve tried ignoring it but his father responds to it saying he’s feeling vulnerable and just wants to be cute. Thanks. Paula"

I don't think this represents any real problem. The child is probably just attempting to get attention. The thing that is reinforcing this behaviour is your husband's attention to it. You want to ignore it, he attend to it and unwittingly increases its occurrence. The best course of action is to help your husband understand that by attending to this he only causes it to increase in frequency. Once you both ignore it consistently it will disappear quickly enough. The child should be encouraged to use his "big boy" voice and be told that at his age, 5, most boys and girls don't speak like that. It's time to use the "magic sentence". Do you remember what it is? I've spoken about it often and written about it often. Use it, it works!