The funniest, cutest and downright strangest list of babies' first words.

I will never forget my daughter’s first word. She was five months old.

I’d been reading her Harry The Dirty Dog, and she said “Harry!”

I was so excited that I started telling everyone I knew about how brilliant she was.

As it turns out, it must have been a burble or a burp or something, because she didn’t say her first real word for almost another year (dreams of being a mum to a child genius: Shattered).

Just as an FYI, this post is sponsored by Toyota RAV4 But all opinions expressed by the author are 100 per cent authentic and written in their own words.

My daughter’s first real word was “dodo”, for dog. That was followed by “bath”, “pub”, “mum” and “ham” (yes, I wrote them all down. First child syndrome…)

My son’s first word was “more”. In fact, that was the only word he used for months.

“More, more, more!” he’d say, accompanied by lots of frantic pointing at food, most of which wasn’t suitable for him to eat.

Related: “I love my son more than my daughter” she said.

As for my son’s second, third, fourth and fifth words, I’m not quite sure what they were (no, I didn’t write them down. Sorry, second child.)

I recently asked my friends who are mothers about this topic. It seems that everyone remembers the first word their child said.

For a lot of them, it was either “mum” or “dad” (and yes, it does really, really matter which one comes first).

But there are plenty of rebel babies out there who had other things on their minds…

Wiz: “My son’s first word was ‘Batman’. My daughter said ‘Barbara Ann’ first. She’s a Beach Boys fan. Her next word was ‘Batman’, after much work from my son.”

Sharon: “When my third son was 12 months old, he used to point to his dad’s drink and say ‘beer’. We lived in Darwin…”

Emma: “My daughter’s first word was ‘Adie’. She was trying to say the name of our dog, Sadie. We felt a bit put out that it wasn’t ‘mum’ or ‘dad’, being our first child. But the dog was a very naughty Labrador puppy and she probably heard us yelling at it several times a day!”

Melissa: “My first daughter said ‘bird’ before anything else. My second daughter said ‘go (a)way you’ to my first daughter.”

Annie: “My son’s first word was ‘car’. It is still his favourite word. And his favourite thing.”

Fiona: “My daughter said ‘Elmo’ three times, then didn’t speak again for months.”

Holly: “My child’s first word was ‘dad’. Dagger to my heart…”

 Related: When having a 2nd child changes your feelings for your firstborn

Jo: “My son said ‘bye’ to a petrol station attendant. My husband and I couldn’t believe it. We tried to make him do it again but it wasn’t until later that he started saying it regularly.”

Lisa: “‘Hello’ was my son’s first word. It was more a Teletubbies-type ‘eh-lo’ than an actual hello, but it was definitely ‘hello’.”

Jolanda: “My daughter’s first word was ‘mum’, but then she didn’t say it again for a long time. She kept saying ‘dada’.”

Kerrie: “My daughter’s was ‘shoes’.”

Penny: “My younger son’s first word was ‘no’. Still a fave.”

It’s such an individual thing. You’ll look back on it over the years, and read meaning into it: “See, I knew she was going to be obsessed with fashion because her first word was ‘shoes’,” or “See, I knew she’d grow up to front a Beach Boys tribute band.”

One word. Never to be forgotten.

We all grew up with these babies on our screens and this is what they look like now. 

What was your child’s first word?

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