"Dah!" - that's the only word....

[theweathergirl]

my 17 month old can say - and she uses it for everything! I'm getting annoyed at everyone else's baby who seems to be able to recite the whole of baa baa black sheep... how can I get her to start talking!

she will when she's ready and then you'll regret every minute of it!
My dd is 17 mths and picking up a bit every day...it will happen

Oh weathergirl it's not true. Often these child prodigies are intelligible only to mummy anyway. She will talk when she needs to and wants to. You can help of course - talk to her all the time, point out anything and everything you see when you are out; sing songs and nursery rhymes to her; read to her, use animal noises, talk about colours of eveything, numbers etc; use names of family members, friends, pets; and anything that does come out that sounds like a word, it is one! Repeat it and praise her (she says "ba", you say , yes clever girl, it's mummy's lovely pink bag, or whatever). I'm sure you do all these things anyway. The range esp at this age and for quite a while is masses; from the odd two-word phrase at 2 years (eg daddy car/mummy home etc)to complete sentences - both quite normal. HTH and don't worry.

clary is right, don't worry about ti at all. My ds (now nearly 5) said barely anything (less than 20 words)at age 2 but a few weeks later it was if a flood gate was opened and we couldn't stop him from talking (this is still the case ) DD on the other hand (will be 2 in May) is very articulate with an amaxing vocabulary. It just goes to show that each child is different and they will speak when they are ready.

I really should preview before I post (damn typos!! )

Just thought I'd add my support. My friends baby didn't utter a word until he was 3. She went to see speech therapists and everything - was extremely worried. He's now eleven and doesn't stop talking. He's also very bright. Different children develop at different rates. She now accepts that hers develop late as she's doing it all over again and her 18 month old can only say a word that sounds like there. (Although I can't say I recognised it!)

I am just the same, my ds is 17 months too, and he like the word dah very much too. We try to keep the TV off as much as possible and have found that this encourages him to listen to us more and say more.He has started saying "car" for everything now. I have been told that boys are lazy with their speech and walking (but ds was walking by 1 year!) Who knows, I spose they'll just surprise us one day!

My dd's 18 months and has a reasonable vocabulary now though a lot of the words are only recognisable to us. I've met other kids the same age who speak loads more and loads less. But as everyone here has said, they all reach more or less the same stage a bit later on so I really wouldn't worry. It's the same with all the 'milestones' like walking etc. My dd walked at 1 year but my friend's didn't til 15 months. They're both 18 months now and walk exactly as well as each other, in fact my friend's dd is probably a bit more steady and tackling stairs where my dd is much more cautious. Did you see that Robert Winstone programme a few months ago? It was really interesting about speech. Some of the children spoke really well and some didn't. The ones that didn't though were much more sensitive to picking up on adult emotions and things like that so it just seems that they all divert their attention into different things at different times.

And 'dah' is very cute!

Gosh weathergirl - I don't know many 17 month olds who can recite baa baa black sheep...my 20 month old certainly can't (she can do the first line but that's it) and she has a pretty reasonable vocablory.

My friends dd (22 months old) was saying nothing, not one word, not even 'mummy' until a fortnight ago, but I kid you not in the last fortnight she has gone from zero words to around 10-15 words and is acquiring a new one every day.

So to echo everyone else - please relax, it will happen