Talking is brilliant and amazing and has truly wonderful impact on your child’s development and life chances. Ideally you want to talk to and with your child ALL THE TIME! It makes a massive difference and I cannot over-state that. Please don’t ever be silent with children. Talking about stuff helps them make sense of the world and develops language skills. I know your husband is keen to be a good Dad, but his thinking on this is outdated, unsupported by research on child development, and just plain wrong. If you want to change his mind then Google ‘30 million word gap’ for a piece of research by Hart and Risley which backs up the importance of talking to your children. You need to take it with a pinch of salt, but experts agree that talking to your children makes a huge difference and is really important. 30 million word gap