How much does your toddler talk?

We may be a little different here, as Xanda suffers from Glue ear and has only just had his Grommets in, a big push was put through for the grommets as his speech was deteriorating very rapidly. But in the last couple of weeks before the grommets his vocab improved greatly as well as the clarity of his speech.

The list of his words would be too long to write out but a couple of favourite new ones at the moment are 'mine' and 'everyone' - which he says to all his teddies as he is putting them to bed, 'nite nite everyone'.

I agree that listening to adults speaking has a great influence on children and their speech. So maybe suggest to your hubby, lots of chatter throughout the day, I babble about everything I am doing and give a running commentary.

We have been adding up James' words and he just about can say 50 and he said his first proper sentence today to jesse which was "I want more bubbles" lol

My MIL just told me that DH didn't talk at this age either. He (the last of 8 kids) just pointed when he wanted something and one of his 9 family members would get it for him.

So, with that biology (i.e. stubborn perfectionist mum and a dad who thinks he's royalty) it's no surprise really!

I think boys tend to speak later than girls because if we want to compare (WHICH I HATE DOING BECAUSE EVERY BABY DOES THEIR OWN THING IN THEIR OWN TIME) Lucas is couple weeks younger than BSDD and he definitely doesn't speak anywhere near 20 words yet.

Mum, Mumma, Dad, Dada, Gah (means poppa or my brother ...male adults generally), Cat and my fave - Nana (so cute when he does this).

He used to say 'what dat?' as clear as day but stopped saying it after 10 months old.

I still think he is too young to be speaking, I'm led to believe they really don't have much control over language until 18 months of age +

I think the main thing is sign language & understanding of words, demands & questions etc.

For example if I ask for a book, ball etc he will go and get them and bring them over to me, if I tell him to clap or play peek-a-boo he will...and high fives. We dance together, and he points when I say wheres the plane and he finds it in the sky....He recognizes words I use everyday and he can relate them to a task or object basically, and when we read books he seems to know whats coming up ...the expression in his face tells all.

He does a lot of baby sign language also, when he wants a drink or booby he does this suckling thing with his hands ...like he;s milking a cow? lol

I'm not really concerned about his language at all, I read him plenty of books & talk throughout the day to him . I do think that playcentre/daycares can play a part in kids vocab BUT in saying that there are a lot of cons in sending them to places like that too.

I'm happy, Lucas is happy, healthy & thriving. Thats all that matters :)

Michaela is beautiful Jo and she sounds like a right character, I wouldn't be too worried.

Plunket like to put the fear of God into parents, the amount of times they made Mum take me to specialists and waste hundreds of dollars only to come out and be told I had eaten too many carrots or that I was fine ...it's ridiculous.

Ok Essay over and out

I personally think all kids have their strengths just like we do. Some are physical, some are talkers etc. Elle has always done the gross motor skills in strange ways and out of order but she is a huge talker. Her vocab is probably in excess of 100 words that she uses regularly, without prompting and in context and she has many sentences. DH and I were both talkers so in our case it is genetics. But put her with kids like Emma's Gremlins and although they are younger, their physical skills are way better than Elle's.

The ranges of "normal" are huge and at this point I certainly wouldn't be worried about Michaela. She seems like a very onto it little lady.

steph - found this...

Though speech develops pretty much the same way for all children, the pace can vary considerably from child to child. As a rule of thumb, children should be able to say one word at about 1, two-word combinations at 18 months to 2 years, and three-word sentences before turning 3. When speech specialists evaluate delayed speech, they care as much about a child's understanding as they do about how much he speaks. For instance, although a typical 18-month-old can say 50 to 100 words, he can understand far more. Making gestures and following directions indicate that your child is understanding and communicating, and there's likely little reason to worry.

Boys: They often develop speech later than girls, though there's usually only about a one- to two-month lag. At 16 months, boys use an average of 30 words, while girls tend to use around 50.

Famous late talkers
When you're tired of being asked when your child is going to talk, remember that these successful people didn't begin talking until they were at least 2 -- and, in some cases, 4!

Gary Becker, Nobel Prize-winning economist
Albert Einstein
Julia Robinson, the first woman president of the American Mathematical Society
Arthur Rubinstein, piano virtuoso
Edward Teller, physicist and nuclear power pioneer

Michaela's understanding is definitely outstanding. I commented before Christmas (she was about 19mo) how nice it is to be able to ask her to do something and she will (if she chooses to). Or I bribe her "lie down for a nappy change then you can feed the cat" and sure enough she knows what I'm saying.

She doesn't need to talk as we always provide her with options (eg. when choosing what book to read or what she wants to eat) and all she needs to do is say mmm-hmmm to the one she wants.

I'm convinced that she has a 'hidden' vocabulary though, not just because there are words she's stopped using but also yesterday she was being looked after by my mum and my niece. She decided she wanted me and started searching the house calling "mum...mum" when I didn't respond to this she got quite upset and started yelling for me "Jo....Jo.."

I've never heard her use my first name before, she usually calls me mum or if I'm busy and not responding quick enough she use mummy, but obviously she knows how to say it and thought she'd use it since 'mum' wasn't working.

I am anti forcing her to talk if she doesn't want to, now I just need to convince DH to give her a bit more time before calling in the plunket nurse again (if she's still not talking much in June).

Michaela started talking about the same age as your wee one. She said Mumma for ages before I finally admitted (at 5mo) that she was using it as my name. Like McKayla her next word was cat and daddy got a look in too.

Sounds like she is pretty much the same, developmentally, as McKayla. She understands us really well (maybe a bit too well ) and we communicate fine.

I know that she is ok, totally within the bounds of normal plus I've always been confident that she will pick up her language again but it is nice to hear of someone else that's experienced the same thing.

One of my favourite sayings when mums start comparing their kids development (which we all do whether we like it or not) is "by 5 yo it won't matter".