9 month old not babbling

[Rhayader]

My 9 month old DS is very quiet, when frustrated he will make a loud "ahhh" sound but no other vocalisation. He went through a phase around 6/7 months when he started saying his name over and over again but no other words, this is very strange for me as DD was saying dada, mama etc from around 5/6 months and continued on.

He sometimes accidentally babbles if he has his hand in his mouth but i'm not really counting this. A few days ago he started occasionally blowing raspberries.

In terms of other development, we have hard wood floors and he doesn't crawl "properly" but he is incredibly adept at commando crawling and is essentially just as fast as a traditional crawler. He doesn't wave (i'm not sure if it's too early) but he will always smile back to anyone smiling.

At what point should I try and get a referral? Am I just panicking over nothing? We live in London so don't have a health visitor although i could take him to a clinic.

Looking for reassurance please but be honest..

I have a 9 month old and an older DS. On the one hand I can see that not babbling at all would be a bit worrying (though he clearly can babble) but at the same time I think perhaps your expectations from your DD are a bit high. My 9 month old babbles all the time but nothing remotely recognisable and I'm not remotely worried by that. My DS1 was much less chatty and said very little that was recognisable until 2- he's now a very chatty and articulate 3.9 year old.

As to the other stuff, DS2 has just started waving but DS1 was over a year- not waving at 9 months is completely normal. So too is not crawling properly- that's not remotely concerning. Hard floors can make it a bit slippy for early crawling I think l- we have the same and my two both had a good couple of months of commando shuffling before they mastered a proper crawl.

It was extremely unusual for your DD to be saying words at 5 to 6 months, so I think it's not a useful comparison for your DS.

For your own peace of mind I would take him to a HV clinic and just run it past them. I'd expect them to say that it's within the bounds of normal.

Dd 12 months didn't start to babble until two weeks ago.
Don't worry about it, 9 months isn't old enough to worry about not babbling

Thanks all, you're making me feel much better, just panicking because all the googleing i'm doing is saying if they are not babbling by 8 months its a "red flag".

I will take him to see the HV and see what they say. DD was always v vocal as a baby but not physical at all, but DS is the complete opposite.

Neither of my son's babbled. DS1 was a really early talker so didn't really need to. DS2 was a really late talker and just said Ah! for everything until nearly 3!

I was worried about DS2, but he has come on loads and is talking non stop now at 4.2. His speech pattern is still a bit immature for his age but I am no longer concerned.

Hi how did your little ones get on?