To be very worried about the fact my child doesn’t speak?

Best professional advice I got was to get a bunch of plastic animals, including farm animals and practice their different sounds, multiple times a day if you can, making a fun game of it.
This is the building block of speech and comes before words.

My late dp's daughter didn't talk until she was nearly 3. She could point at what she wanted, rubbed her tummy if she was hungry, pointed at her mouth if she was thirsty. Then, from nowhere, she started picking up words & within 3 months had caught up with children of the same age. She had a brother who was 18 months older than her, so had someone to communicate with of her own age, she had walked at 9 months & understood what was being said to her. All children are different, my ds was doing the mumumumum & dadadadad sounds at 10 months, then at 14 months stopped talking for about a month, then started using full sentences. If she is meeting her other milestones like walking, feeding herself etc, I wouldn't worry, maybe get her hearing checked just in case there is a problem. Expose her to as much language as you can, read to her, sing songs with actions, nursery rhymes, give her a commentary when you are doing things, ask her to point to things like can you point to a red door or a blue car, give her simple instructions like can you give me your socks, just keep talking, it will come.

My youngest was about 3 before he was saying many words. I was very concerned about him and his nursery had him assessed by a senco. She wasn't concerned.
He very quickly progressed when he eventually started talking and was fine once he started school.

DS was nearly 3 before I stopped worrying. It was like a switch was turned on and he went from 6 words to sentences in a matter of weeks.
He understood everything though and could point at things in books.

I have a fair amount of experience in this both personally with 2 of my kids and professionally. (I am NOT a speech therapist to be clear though!) Receptive language (ie understanding) is what they are more concerned about at this age. It sounds like your little boy is on track with that.

You have done nothing wrong. My 20 month old has just had a (private) speech therapy assessment and he is delayed in verbal communication and gross motor skills (sounds crazy but the two can be linked). He says ‘dada’ and occasionally something that sounds like ‘more.’

Things that should help:

Lots of face to face play and face to face reading stories so he can see your mouth physically moving.
Modelling simple language as much as you possibly can.
Narrate your day for him to keep up the understanding.
Bubbles! Good for practising blowing but often get language going as you can use lots and lots of very simple language (pop, up, down, all gone etc).

If you’re on Instagram there are loads of qualified speech therapists who can give more ideas. If you can afford it you could do a private assessment, just to see where he sits. NHS won’t do anything at the moment.

Does he have any issues with:
Eating/drinking/chewing etc
excess dribbling?
gross motor skills?

Honestly try not to worry too much. He will get there. It is good to be aware though.

The GP said it didn’t matter and was no help

To be fair, the GP did help you - they told you it wasn’t anything to worry about, which was correct and would have been helpful if you’d believed them. Why do you think you weren’t reassured by the medical advice that your son’s language development is totally normal? Is this something you have a particular anxiety about?

Hopefully, other people’s experiences on this thread are helping to allay your concerns - please try not to worry!

Just to add my child on his second birthday said 5 words. He understood everything.

Two months later he was talking in paragraphs and still hasn't stfu.

If he wasn't understanding I'd he worried, but he is so try and relax.

He communicates with you non-verbally and he understands and responds to the language that he hears. That's the most important bit. The expressive language will come later.

If he wasn't responsive to you and your instructions, if he wasn't pointing or non verbally requesting, you'd have cause to be concerned. But he sounds as though he's doing fine.

Teach him makaton
Watch something special
Check his hearing
Can he choose if you show him two photos eg milk or juice?

My youngest was the same. We even had his hearing tested. He didn’t say much till he was almost two, then he didn’t stop talking for 14 years… He’s just fine now.

Riseandsigntherapies on Insta - Marissa Ramos - she's got a huge array of simply fantastic ideas to get little ones to use their sounds, and Makaton.

Sounds like his non verbal communication is good, if he's pointing and making eye contact and getting his needs met I wouldn't be worrying about spoken language. My son is autistic and had a big speech delay, no one cared about words it was the fact his understanding wasn't there coupled with very little gesture use (pointing, clapping, waving etc) and no non verbal communication. Just do lots of role modelling and don't keep asking him to 'say x' as it's overwhelming for them.

Op my little boy is the same age and the same. He can follow some instructions like get your teddy, get a book, find your shoes , do you want a snack. Etc. he can't say mama. He says daddy, down, out, wow, go. Only so I can understand, not that others might. It bothers me he can't say mama.

My dd at the same age could say quite a lot. I don't know whether I need to do anything or just wait.

It sounds fine, but it would be worth checking that he has directional hearing. Go into the garden or park or street. Wait until you can both hear the sound of a bird or car that is out of sight. Say "can you point to the bird/car?"

If he can do this reliably, it means that both his ears are working well. If he can't, then he might have glue ear and it's worth getting it checked by an audiologist. You wouldn't actually do anything about that, but it's useful to know. Glue ear is really common in kids. They grow out of it. You work differently to teach them to speak if there is hearing difficulty, so it's useful to know.

sounds pretty normal. Talk to him all the time - running commentary. Interpret his communication with speech and repeat it back eg if he point at his water saying ‘you would like your water bottle.. water please mummy’. Very likely language will explode at some point

I remember having those worries.
What got my ds talking was a kitchen roll inner tube. If you talk into it, it makes a nice sound. He loved that and used to copy me. Then never stopped talking.
It might be worth a try!

He sounds like a clever wee fellow. He knows what socks are and what you want to do with them. He'll talk at his own pace.

My LO is 18 months and has only really started saying a few other words from mama and Daddy. What I found helped is when she said a word that sounded like another I'd really go OTT and congratulate her for saying the word and then repeat it back. It somehow worked and really built her confidence to give it a go again. For example; sue could say 'up' so I then said cup well done this is your CUP. So using similar sounds but learning new words. I also try and use words in context so if we're going to the car, i say it as much as I can within my sentences and really exaggerate it.
Don't worry yourself kids are all so different. Apparently I didn't speak until past 2 and I don't stop now 😂 We all get there. If you are worried, keep an eye out though and go to your HV. They are so young at this point I don't think they'd do much but suggest a hearing test.
I made it my mission to read 1 story a day to my LO and we're still going strong. Reading can help understanding and vocabulary immensely. Even if it's not being said now it's being stored to use later. Xx

My son was similar at that age. His speech didn't really come on until he was about 2. He's 3 next week and constantly rabbiting on now!

One of mine barely said a word until 2.5.

Another one was talking constantly by 18 months, with a vocabulary many years ahead of expectations...except his pronunciation was so poor no one could understand him and he had extensive speech therapy until age 6.

Third dc was talking beautifully by 2 in full, understandable sentences.

They're all now equally 'vocal' and equal in intelligence/academic ability. All NT.

Dc are just different, it usually evens out in the end. Definitely far too young to be worrying.

I had one very early talker and one late talker. DS was over two before he said his first word but once he started speaking it all came at once. They all get there in their own time. I wouldn't worry. My mum tells me I didn't start speaking until I was three!

This is really normal. All of my children suddenly began to speak much more around the 2 year mark. They've gone on to have really good speech.

Language development isn't linear. There's very little progress for many months and then suddenly they "explode" with a burst of new language. I wouldn't be worried about a lack of speech until at least about 2.5 years old.

The use of gestures and pointing and also having a good understanding of what is spoken to them, is also reassuring and linked to speech development. For example, autistic children whose speech is severely affected often do not point or gesture at all, and may completely ignore instructions.

You can help your child's speech to develop even faster with things like speech routines / phrases which you repeat, which might encourage your child to step in and finish the phrase. Eg "ready steady go". You say this lots of times and you might find when you say "ready steady..." And leave a pause, your child will say "go". So you can use this for all sorts "here comes the spoon! Here comes the spoon! Here comes the... " Don't put too much pressure on it, just keep it fun! Another thing would be to consider use of hand gestures or even sign language to accompany some words.

But you don't have to do any of that because really your child sounds v v normal and not behind at all.

Sounds the same as my 18 month old. He's just learnt dinosaur (sasar) and can say mama, dummy and sisters name and ta. But most of the day he just babbles happily.
But he understands much more. Sister asked to go in the garden and he threw his toys down and ran to the back door. Can also point to nose, head and tummy when asked. He also knows lay down and shoes.

He's super cute and I think on lower end of average. He also goes and hides in the corner when doing something he knows he shouldn't be. 🤣

What is his understanding like generally? Does he understand a lot of what you say? Does he show joint attention - point to show you interesting items, bring you toys just so you can see them rather than do something with them?