Eager to hear others’ experiences of similar situations as having quite a freak out at the moment!
My ds (my first) turned 15 months a few days ago and currently has no words at all. He’ll make different pitched sounds and occasionally a single syllable, but none of them in any particular context. He is very content though, smiles and laughs a lot and will join in games such as peek-a-boo, but he’s not particularly social or excited to see new people, and generally prefers to do his own thing with his toys. I wasn’t so worried about the lack of speech previously but now I’m getting to the stage where I don’t believe he understands anything I say to him and I feel like progress has stalled, as I don’t know how he’ll be able to learn language if he doesn’t understand basics such as “no” or “come here” regardless of my tone or hand movements! We read a lot together and he enjoys turning pages and generally engages with the pictures but I’m beginning to think he’s only really taking on the visual input.
He will crawl to me (not walking yet either although he has just started standing) and holds his arms up when he wants picking up, but he doesn’t use any gestures such as waving or pointing to communicate yet. If I leave the room for a while and come back in and call his name he will usually acknowledge it, but if I’m already in the room he doesn’t tend to turn round, almost like a “I know you’re there Mum, why are you calling me?” His newborn hearing test came back fine and I’m not personally concerned about his hearing as he responds to a lot of different types of sound and different volumes, but it’s just not consistent, more like he doesn’t care that I’m calling him at certain times rather than he can’t hear me! He seems to respond more to music so his ears will prick up if I sing to him or if he hears the theme tune to a favourite show (even if it’s several rooms away!) I have contacted my health visitor and he’s being referred for a hearing test as a first stage check but that will be a couple of months before it comes through. I guess at the moment I’m just panicking about the future, but I know I do also have a tendency to over-think things. Really looking to hear from those of you who have come through the other side of this kind of limbo and how things turned out for you. Thanks in advance, everyone.