baby not babbling at ten months

[smileattherain]

i was wondering if anyone could give me any reassurance/experience...basically my ten month baby boy has not yet started to babble and i'm getting a bit concerned.

I saw my health visitor who suggested a referral to audiology, so gp visit has been booked, but would love to hear from anyone whose had similar experiences, or can tell me i'm worrying too much!

I guess I'm a bit sensitive since we had a bit of a shaky start to my little one's life when he had no heart rate and wasn't breathing at 10mins old (bit of a chaotic birth and length of time he wasn't breathing not really known, but that's a whole other story!), which makes me worry about pretty much everything that doesn't seem exactly as it should!

I don't think you need to worry quite yet, try getting face level with him and make noises with your mouth and see if he tries to copy, try to copy him as well and just experiment with it see if you get a response.

I think youve done the right thing getting the refferal, best to get it checked out - if it turns out to be nothing then you've not really lost anything by checking. And if there is ne help he needs then atleast you have picked up on it young

my ds2 has some problems with this, he's quite a bit older than your ds - 2.5 yrs. he only started to babble mamamamamama recently, although he did have dadadada and gagaga type babbling earlier (i cant remember when) he was quite a quiet baby but tbh i didnt really think about it or pick up on anything when he was a baby.

mine has been seen by audiology and he does have some hearing loss but they leave it to see whether it will sort it self out so they want to see him every 3 months, and they said they may put hearing aids in for him if his hearing stays at this level but not sure if there is a minmum age for that. but his hearing loss is due to fluid in the ear - dont know whether babies get that or not??

How do you feel his hearing is? like if you say his name will he turn around etc? even if he seems like he can hear it should be stil worth getting him tested. with mine i wasnt hugely conserned about his hearing because he does respond to sounds, but it still came back mild-moderate hearing loss

I dont know whether they do any slt assessment sooo young but ask them to put him on a waiting list incase things don't pick up? you might have to push a bit for that as im sure some hv would be like "10 months old? get lost" but considering the situation with his birth you might be able to persuade them?

can he make any sounds at all? like ahh eee etc, ie do you mean he's not babbling with consonants, or not making any noise at all?

It could be nothing - BUT if you are concerned yourself then get it checked out and push for the appointments and dont let people fob u off

Thank you for the replies!

I will definitely keep on with trying to get my son to copy me. He has never copied me sticking out his tongue or anything like that, but he did have a go at clapping this morning so I will keep at it.

I'm always sticking my tongue out, blowing raspberries etc in an attempt to get him to copy me (along with the occassional bout of bababa just in case...I know rationally he's unlikely to start babbling cos I am, but you never know!). Normally he giggles along but makes no obvious attempts at copying me.

We gets lots of giggling and grunting, and a couple of months ago he was cooing, but that seems to be getting more and more rare..haven't heard him go 'ahh' in about a week or so, and it doesn't vary...no eeeh, just aahh. And no consonants at all.

I'm not really sure about his hearing to be honest, he does sometimes turn to his name, but maybe only 10% of the time...I've always put it down to him being too involved in whatever he is doing, but I guess it could be a hearing issue.

I guess its just a case of getting a referral and going from there...I try to sing and talk to him as much as I can, we read together every day and have also just started baby signing sessions to add an extra string to my bow as it were...along with Romy Madison's suggestion of getting him to copy mouth shapes, is there anything obvious I am missing out on doing?

Thanks again for taking the time to reply to me!

Does he respond to music? My 10 month old loves bopping along to everything. I also take him to sing and sign, this is our second term and last week he did his first sign.

My oldest DS has hearing loss and looking back at his behaviour he was never much interested in music unless it was banging pots with a wooden spoon.

Also do you repeat sounds that he is making back to him? My DS loves this and it seems to spur him on make more noise.

Hi

My DS1 didn't babble until he was 15 months it was the first sign that he had speech and language delays. In the area we lived at the time the speech and language therapists had drop in sessions at local childrens centres and they did quite a thorough assessment of his understanding of language and sound as well as the sounds he made. There may be something similar available where you live.

I also recommend the book Baby Talk by Sally Ward. It has lots of useful ideas and lists what children can normally do by certain ages and then a separate list of if they can't do x seek help.

The giggling sounds wonderful and a really great sign. How is he on the moving front?

My DD3 was quite quiet and has progressively started to babble more and more. She was sent for a hearing test at about 9 months - we almost cancelled the test as we were convinced her hearing was fine but guess what - she's had glue ear. I was utterly surprised. The audiologist said that could hardly hear. They recommended turning off the radio and TV etc - so cutting out background noise. Getting up close and in front of her. They are checking her hearing in a couple more months.

What noises is he making?

He likes it if I sing and dance to music in front of him, but if I just put music on he doesn't seem at all bothered...so I end up doing very (bad) comedy dancing to get a reaction!

I also always echo any sounds, often including the grunting but really go overboard on doing it if he goes aah at all!
my neighbours must think i'm mad....

He is quite active physically...crawling everywhere, pulling up and cruising round furniture (he was cruising weeks before he crawled) and he will crawl to his high chair at times when he is hungry, crawl to the door when he sees me filling up change bag, which always makes me smile!

I've been really trying to work out if he reacts when I call him, and I am pretty sure he does at quite a lot of the time, so my initial reaction was that his hearing must be fine, so its really interesting to hear that you thought the same then found out different, daytoday! Did they treat the glue ear? I had grommets when I was younger, but more like 5 years than under one...do they treat or just monitor?

The wooden spoon rings a bell too, onetwothreeoops, but he also seeems to get startled by unexpected really loud noises...did that happen with your older DS, do you mind me asking?

Thanks for the book recommendation hanbee, I will definitely look that up... do you mind me asking what happened once your ds1's speech delay was picked up? was there much support?

phew that was long...thanks if you got to thw end!

Tbh I think speech and language therapy is massively oversubscribed/under staffed countrywide. We waited a long time for an initial appointment but now he's on the list he's seem every 3 months. This is fine for DS1 but probably wouldn't be enough if he needed help with speech sounds (he's not that far on ).

Initially we were just given instructions to carry out at home. Keep the playing room quiet, talk about the Childs focus of attention, keep sentences short etc. This is all the sort of stuff in the book I mentioned, it's really useful but easy to do stuff even if you don't end up needing a speech therapist. I used the techniques with my younger son and his language is now quite advanced at 19 months.

We were also advised to teach our older son to use a straw (helps lip muscle strength and lip closure), blow bubbles and introduce lumps and finger foods as early as possible as all help the muscles necessary for speech to develop.

Obviously seek a medical opinion but I wanted to add that my DD didn't babble at 10 months. My HV just told me to ring in one month if she wasn't at 11 months. I didn't need to ring her.

She now has a full range of consonants at 13 months. HTH.

They are not doing anything about the glue ear just yet. She is going to be retested soon. I think they'll keep retesting for a couple of years and if its recurring then it'll be hearing aids or grommets.

Honestly, I wouldn't have said she has anything wrong with her hearing, anecdotally. But the hearing test came up completely flat.

None of my children babbled. At all. My son was still grunting at 2 - although at 2.5 he spoke fluently. However my three girls all had speech delays. Two of them had severe speech delays. The babbling could be something, could be nothing.... but you've flagged it up with the experts. Best wishes.

Thanks for all your replies..sorry its taken me so long to reply. I've just got hold of Sally Ward's baby talk, so am currently ploughing through it and starting to implement it - thanks for the recommendation, it looks really useful.

We're now just waiting for an appointment to come through for a hearing test - my ds is 11 months next week and still no signs of babbling, though he has developed a lovely high pitched squeak which seems to be replacing any cooing at the moment.

Thanks also for the reassurance that some dc don't babble and then go on to develop speech along with their peers. I know I'm at risk of jumping off the deep end and convincing myself there is a serious problem when in all likelihood everything is actually fine....

thanks all again, i hope i will be able to update with good news quite soon!

Hi smile,

Glad you're finding the book interesting. It's definitely the child related book I've looked at most in the last 3 years!

Dint worry about seeming to be going off the deep end, you're not. Parents know their child better than anyone so don't let any professionals fob you off it you have concerns. They often want to investigate any but the most serious of delays until the child is age 2, in my experience. So you must believe in yourself and be prepared to fight push for what you want: hearing test, speech therapist assessment etc.

Sorry that should of read "they often DON'T want to investigate!"

@smileattherain hi there.. I know this post is very old not sure if you're going to see this .. but i have the same situation so I wanted to know how is your baby now ? Every thing is good ? 🤍

I now have a very articulate ten year old who doesn't stop talking, particularly about his special interests! He is autistic, but generally doing really well and turning into a lovely young man who is managing at school with just a little extra support. I would say that all in all, things are most definitely good! I think my advice would be not to worry at this stage, but just to keep an eye on things and trust your instincts - if you are concerned, then don't sit in silence, but ask for help/advice sooner rather than later, as a little bit of support/understanding at an early stage is really helpful - either to reassure you that things are as professionals would expect them to be, or to put things in place as early as possible.

@smileattherain
Hello! I was just wondering if your son ever babbled!?

My baby girl is 9 months old. She babbled for 2 days at 7 months and then babbled non stop for 5 days at 8.5 months and now for the past two weeks just a tiny bit of rara maybe twice a day.

She's very active like your baby was. Crawling from 6 months and pulling self up on furniture. She just started clapping randomly a few days ago and can point to our nose/eyes mouth if prompted and randomly points at other things too!

Smiles back but not all the time and only answers to her name some of the times!

Slightly worried FTM here :/

@Possum1986 my son is doing same thing as ur daughter... he never makes ahhh , ohhh sounds but babbled at 7 month for 3 days and then at 8 month for 4 days , now he babbling only twice a day. he is not responding name very clearly.

@amankaura Hello. How old is your son?

My baby girl is now babbling much more. It's still not all day but its multiple times a day and she does it when we show her, so she is mimicking us too. She seems to be better at answering to her name too. They change so quickly! I am not as worried anymore as she claps, waves, points with pointer fingers, can understand simple things like splash, bang, shake, point to our nose etc. I hope your little one starts to babble more soon too! It sure can be worrying

my son is 8 month old , he babble twice now .. you give me a hope bcoz m following u from the beginging as ur dauther was also quite at that time. i hope our baby are fine.

@Possum1986 my baby do not show any strange anxiety , he raise arms to anyone for picked up that by m worried more

@amankaura Hopefully he will soon! Mine didn't either and now she has stranger anxiety, and lifts her arms up to be picked up :)

@Possum1986 in which month ur baby started strange anxity?