To think a 13 month old cannot say 106 words?

[TinyChatterbox]

Just over a year ago I had my first child and like many did an antenatal group. As lockdown commenced several of us managed to track each other down on Facebook and we started a group chat. There are now 5 of us who were in the original antenatal group in this chat and its been lovely to catch up albeit virtually every now and again.

All 5 of us are first time parents and one of the group boastfully posted yesterday evening that her daughter (who is 13 and 1/2 months) can now say 106 words. Now I'm not disputing she may think her child says that many words but she's talking utter bullshit isn't she. There is absolutely no way her 14 month old actually says 106 words which could be understood by anyone.

It's really pissed me off and I'd love some clarification because one of the mums in the group, who is quite a young mother, has responded in a blind panic that her child who is also 13 months only says 8 words. She's understandably completely freaking out and has messaged the health visitor as there is clearly something wrong with her daughter.

YANBU - The mum is deluded to think her child says 106 words.

YABu - It's perfectly possible a 13 month old can say 106 words.

As for the rest, they all develop differently so the younger mum needs to be supported to not worry about it

Which is exactly what I'm trying to do. The mum who posted has done so as if this is completely normal and not at all unusual and has not offered any reassurance that it might actually be pretty uncommon.

The young mum is a single parent doing it all alone and a message saying oh don't worry i know it's unusual I wish sometimes she would stop talking for 2 minutes would have done wonders. Instead the other mother replied only 8...

It’s very unusual but perfectly possible. Some children to talk very early - my daughter was one of them.

My 21 month old can say about 30 full, proper words.

And most of this is an explosion within the last month.

But my friends little boy who is 3 week older than mine can have full conversations with you so I do believe it's possible. It's just not very common.

Impressive and it is possible. My friends child spoke full sentences at 18 months. It was very weird but he lacked in a lot of other areas, sleep, couldn't feed himself until he was 2 1/2 etc whereas I took sleep over speech any day haha

Mine said meow, dada & bye at the age! They're all so different and some might really excell at speech.

Don't be angry or upset, she is just proud and probably didn't mean to upset you. I don't like competitive parenting, it helps nobody x

I counted all the words my PFB could say. He was an early talker and we could have proper little conversations with full sentences by 18 months. He had loads of words.

By contrast my second didn't talk till he was 5! And I can't even remember what my next 3 did, only that they were in the normal range for speaking.

My oldest is 21 now and how much he spoke then has had absolutely no bearing on the rest of his life.

Boastful mum has really annoyed me because she's basically implied everyone elses child is subpar and delayed by not being anywhere close to saying that many words.

Boastful mum can’t have met any other babies but her own.! The only reason that I can’t say it’s impossible is that I haven’t met all the babies in the world!

A friend's month premature daughter was a really early talker and spoke very distinctly. I never counted her words but I can remember babysitting at around the 13-14 month stage and hearing her over the baby monitor saying 'Never mind. Momma home soon' on repeat. Unsettling in such a small child.

She grew up perfectly normal and average!

At 2 my DD said “yeah” she’s nearly 15, she rarely shuts up

My eldest had 6 words at 18 months, she has just turned 14 and is absolutely fine, no difference to her younger brother who had 64 words (yes I counted lol) at 18 months and is now 13. My 3 year old had about 12 words at 18 months and now doesn't shut up. There is a very wide range of normal. Although 106 at under 14 months is highly unlikely

I am a retired Speech and Language Therapist.

Unlikely to say the least - the child doesn't have physical control of the oral apparatus at that age, IIRC (I worked with adult strokes and head injuries, so my recall of child development is hazy).

I don't doubt the baby UNDERSTANDS the words, and ATTEMPTS the words - but I can't believe s/he produces them, especially if the child is a boy, as on average they are slower to speak than girl infants are.

This is just competitive parenting. Take it with a pinch of salt.

In the HIGHLY UNLIKELY scenario that it's true, this child is a prodigy, but the rest of them aren't lagging behind what they should be able to manage.

My second child was a very early talker.
I did keep track up to 50 words (just for my own interest) so I know that came before turning one.

It tends to come on in leaps and bounds after the first 50, so it's definitely possible my child had added another 50 in the next 4 weeks or so. (Couldn't walk though, not until nearly 2). Definitely talking in long, complicated sentences before 18 months.

I never boasted about dc's talking or ever even brought it up at all, but actually I remember other parents around that time regarding Dc with horror when they heard her speaking, and avoiding talking to me at playgroups (perhaps I was just being over sensitive - I did find it quite upsetting at the time.) Even family and close friends were shocked when they heard Dc speak.

I was actually a bit concerned it might be a sign of special needs. (Fortunately, it wasn't) So don't pile on "that" mother. Maybe she has a nagging concern at the back of her mind and is being noisy to drown it out.

On the other hand, my elder child could only say mummy, daddy, bye bye and make different animal noises at 13 months.

This strikes me as barmy behaviour and quite honestly can have no purpose other than to brag and make others feel bad.

See that's exactly how the message comes across. Its easy to say don't compare and I've ignored it but it's obviously worried the other mum and I'm just say here thinking why did she even need to post? She must know it's not ususal for children to have so many words even a quick google search would have told her that. No one was asking about how the babies speech was or if anyones baby was talking yet it's just been posted with no other context and it absolutely comes across as her being boastful.

Instead the other mother replied only 8..

Her baby might have exceptional speech (or maybe not!) but the poor kid is going to end up lacking in social skills, with that kind of role model!

106 words? I am not sure that my ds had 106 words when he was 2 although he did some signing and I think that was sufficient for him for a long time, as a pp said!

He said "bubble" when he was 11 months old and then he was about 15 months old before he said anything else.

One good thing about working nearly full time when ds was small was that it kept me away from all the competitive NCT mums. Good job really as he was on the late side of average with everything throughout his pre-school years.

People say they develop at different rates and you don't believe it when they are small, but is true.

it's possible but fairly unusual, and I can't imagine who would actually count...

my DD was probably not far off that at that age because she was frequently speaking in full sentences by 15 months, and I remember seeing a wee girl at a baby group who had incredibly good/clear speech at 12-13 months. my DS on the other hand didn't speak at all till 22 months and only had a handful of words for quite a while. my kids are now 20 and 13 and I really don't think anyone would be able to guess which of them spoke early!!

My sister had 3 children who ALL spoke in sentences before 12 months. No idea how many words but a lot. I have a two year old who can say two words. Every child is different

Mine must be within a few days off her baby (13 1/2 is quite specific). I can reassure the other Mom mine say Mamaaaaaa Daaaaaadaaaaa and a few things that sounds like stuff but aren't. Apparently the HV doesn't care

Also surely the correct answer is

"Ohy gosh, that's awesome. You must film it so we can see and I can show my baby what she's meant to be doing!!". The existence of proof will say it all

Tbh I wouldn’t even care if the kid can say 106 words or not! The boasting and blatant competitive parenting would be enough for me to want to take a step back from her if I was you. I just couldn’t bear the thought of her crowing about her child’s achievements at every single milestone between now and age 18 - that’s a long time!

I take a particularly dim view of this type of parenting one-upmanship as it only serves to make other parents feel miserable if their kid isn’t achieving the same as said wonder-kid. It sucks the enjoyment out of watching your little one grow up. I’ve consciously never done this in any of my baby friend groups as it’s just shitty behaviour.

There is a range of normal for speech development and indeed most milestones. Support is there if something really does appear to be wrong. Boastful parents may also be compensating for their own insecurities, but opt out of the game. Walk away 😉

it's clearly boastful and she's not at all sorry she's caused the otuer parent to panic that her child isn't saying as many words.

Why should she be sorry? She hasn’t done anything wrong and she isn’t responsible for anyone else’s feelings.

There was honestly no need for her to post, surely bragging about stuff like this is kept to grandparents and partners?

So now you want there to be limits on what gets posted in the group in case it upsets someone else? You don’t want people to post too happy a news in case someone else’s baby isn’t quite there yet?

The mum who posted has done so as if this is completely normal and not at all unusual and has not offered any reassurance that it might actually be pretty uncommon.

She doesn’t need to offer reassurance. She shouldn’t have to think about how to word her news and what assurances she can add to make sure there’s absolutely no chance of someone being oversensitive and becoming upset.

She wants to share her happy news with her friends and for them to be happy for her and her baby. Surely you just all celebrate with each other when each little one hits their own milestone, not compare.

DD1 could say dada at that age and that was it. DD2 could speak in lengthy sentences (now diagnosed ASD) but then she could also read to Y1 stage and write at the age of two. She’s not a prodigy but has always been far ahead in some areas (and, as fitting with ASD, far behind in others).

I dare say the odd child can, but I certainly wouldn’t think it’s at all normal.
I wouldn’t think it’s necessarily a sign of superior intelligence, either. I dare say I’ve said it before on here, but a BiL of mine, who barely uttered at all until he was 3*, later won a scholarship to Cambridge.
*but once he started, it came out in whole sentences. He’d just been taking it all in and biding his time. My poor MiL had been getting very worried though.

My siblings and I were all like this - my mum said she only remembers me talking in sentences but we were all late walkers/crawlers etc. We’re smart but by no means geniuses. Our neighbours kids were very different - needed speech therapy but walked a lot sooner. We all turned out ok!

Mine didn’t say any words other than “daddy” and “bye bye” until he was two and then there was no way I could have counted because it was like he woke up one morning with the vocabulary of a 9 year old. Just in time for his two year check!

All children are different but I’d say more than a handful of identifiable words at 14 months is very unusual.

I know that this might feel a big deal to you in your world right now OP....but it really shouldn’t be and any kind of group dialogue that’s making you feel stressed out as you spent time with your daughter should be avoided I’d suggest, I’d consider leaving the group or finding something that’s a bit more supportive for you. Maybe just suggest outright that the group know this word counting thing on the head.

Mine are 19 and 17 years old. One spoke very quickly and said loads the other one was dead slow and didn’t say a great deal before he was 2.5 years old due to glue ear and needing grommets. Both are smart kids, at uni and heading to uni. I really don’t think this is something we should be getting hot under the collar about. Trust me your projected anxiety towards your child on these matters at any early age is damaging so be careful.