Bringing up baby to be multilingual

My DIL has always spoken to the GC in her own language and we are all speaking English seems to have worked very well, DGS did his GCSE two years early.

My two youngest GC live in Gibraltar Mum speaks several languages so she speaks to them in Spanish sometimes Italian but my son speaks mainly English to them as do I, the eldest is six and switches between them all seemlessly but does remember that ‘Granny London’ only understand English ?

Alchemilla is right: my own two daughters (who heard English from me and Italian from my husband) were slower at school to start with.

A wonderful opportunity for the children and good for brain development, so I understand.

And the other thing to remember is that some dual or trilingual children can be a bit slower to read/write (though clearly it didn't affect Berlitz!) Presumably because their brains are organising all the extra information from an additional language or two so it's no concern. Perhaps OP you could ramp up your German? I envy you your future multilingual GS.

Each person with intimate contact with the baby should communicate only in their mother tongue. If you look up the life of George Berlitz (founder of the Language schools), he learnt six languages before the age of six because of the different origins of his family members. At age six, he tried to invent his own Language as he thought that was everybody did!

I live in Italy but only speak English to my (very small) grandchildren. It's not easy with everyone else speaking Italian but I'm sticking to it.

The important thing is not to mix languages with them but it doesn't matter if the children hear you talking to Others in another Language. The concept is that they connect YOU to that one Language.

Not personally, but a friend's British son lives in France with his Spanish wife.

Their children are trilingual - as far as I understand, from the beginning each parent spoke to the children in their language and French is absorbed by living there.