When did your toddler start talking?

[Mum2SweetCs]

When did your toddler start talking?

DD is 14mnths and although she says alot none of it makes sense. The only words she is saying is mamma, babba, mumm mumm (for food), bo bo (for bubbles my sister's dog).

The other night I was teaching her apple, which she said a-bo
but it seems like she is trying so hard.

Is she having speech developmental issues?

I talked to a speech therapist who visited our playgroup and she said that DD should be saying words now but because we speak to her in 3 languages we need to give her a few more months before seeing a specialist.

I'm getting worried now ...

[~breeze~]

I honestly wouldnt be worried at 14 months.... I cant remember how much DD was saying at that age but I think it was alot of random words & not sentences IYKWIM. I also agree that you should give her a bit more time than normal because she is infact learning 3 languages (Lucky girl!)

DS is almost 10 months & I cant see him saying much by then either.

[Liz]

DD is only really now starting to copy our words. She used baby signs for quite a while.. still does.. and just did basics like mumma & dadda. She did a lot of animal noises & things for a while tho.. just not words LOL. I wouldn't be worried at 14 months tho.

I remember DS had a vocabulary explosion at about 19 months (while I was in hospital with DD) and then he just took off. A lot of people were saying he was quite advanced with his talking.. perhaps the baby signing helped him do it quickly once he decided to do it!

[Junglemum]

Regardless of hearing 3 languages, your DD sounds perfectly normal. The average number of words at 18mths is 10. So having that many at 14 months is great. At 14 months DD was lucky to have 2 words if that! Now at 20 months she has more than i can count. I would not be at all concerned.

[MamaPan]

Yep i wouldnt be concerned at this stage - i know lots of babies who didnt say anything at that age.... and at the 18 month check i think they look for 6 words or something like that... i also know a few babies who didnt have ANY words at 18 months then they suddenly picked up lots of words a bit down the track. averages are just averages.
I also know quite a few bilingual families and i hear this often means they take a little longer to talk.. but then they are amazing at more than 1 language...
she sounds normal to me...

[suse]

Seriously, I would not be worried at all. A speech therapist is going to look at it from an entirely different perspective - because they look at kids with problems all the time, they can sometimes have a tendency to see a problem rather than recognising that different kids develop speech at different ages.

My DS is 18 months and has about five or six words tops, and he doesn't say them all of the time, he usually only says one at any given time (as in, he'll say mummy for a few days, then daddy, but not both at once). He is considered to be completely normal in that his comprehension is good, he follows a number of instructions well, and his attempts to imitate different sounds is good.

[Lolli]

Yep, sounds normal. My ds has only just started saying a few proper words the last two weeks or so, and he's almost 18 months old.

[Willow]

I wouldn't worry at all. Like others have said DS took off in leaps and bounds at around 18 months and now says so many words I couldn't count them and is talking in short sentences (ie 'Mummy more bic' which translated is 'Mummy, can I have another biscuit' lol!)

[BhoysGirl]

Seriously - 3 languages!! That is amazing, and a wonderful skill to be giving your DD. At 16 months, I was starting to get a little worried about my DS not having any words, although he babbled all the time, but by 18 months he had a word explosion, and its gone on in fits & starts ever since, some weeks it seems to slow down, then other weeks, it's like a new word every 5 minutes.

I'd maybe be concerned if your DD wasn't trying to communicate at all, and had no baby talk, but that doesn't sound like it is the case. So I'd relax, keep talking, reading, singing & playing with her as much as you can, and she'll be fine.

[krysalyss]

Oh no. Dont be worried. DS was saying very little pre-2years and now he has turned two and has really taken off. She is too young to be worrying. Re-assess her around 2.

[Mum2SweetCs]

Thanks ladies!

I wasnt worried at all previously because I did read that multiligual babies tend to be slower learn, but the speech therapist is what got me worried because she said she should be saying a few words!!!

Thanks once again for the reassurance.

[Curly]

Pffft they should have a minimum of 5 words at 18 months according to our blue book. So your DD is on track so far.

DS only had 4 words at 18 months (mum, dad, bread and more) and I did get him assessed then after the MCHN got a bit bent out of shape about it and she also wanted his hearing tested.

Hearing was fine. Speechie said that his understanding was perfectly fine but he just wasn't making the sounds...and that therapy was "warranted" but I could try some exercises for a month first. I tried the exercises and he HATED them and just got angry with me.

Basically this involved speaking in one and two word sentences for a period of time each day (say 30 mins...the speechie said if I did it any longer it would drive me mad LOL) so he could have a better chance of mimicking the sounds - the speechie explained that he could understand what I was saying but I had to really simplify my language so he could copy the sounds so that was saying things like "Want book?" instead of "Would you like Mummy to read you a story DS? "Want milk" instead of "Would you like some milk?" etc etc... "Up" "Down" etc etc... if we saw a bird instead of "oh look at the bird" just repeat "bird" over and over to try and get him to say it, you get the idea. He just looked at me like I was an idiot and I could tell he knew what I wanted and sometimes he would just shriek with annoyance.

So I gave it up and didn't worry about it and just before he turned 2 lo and behold the words suddenly came. At 2.5 years he has words like "despicable" "disgraceful" and "disgusting" in his vocabulary (thank you Thomas the Tank Engine) so I reckon he's doing okay.

Plenty of time before you have to worry yet.