Am I the reason my 2.4yr old isn't talking?

[coffeeandjuice]

My toddler seems to be happy, he likes playing and seems pretty switched on. But he doesn't talk much....

He can count to ten, he can say about 50 words but he just doesn't seem to be talking fast.

I have another baby who is 13 months younger and I'm concerned I haven't done enough talking to him.

Is there anything I can do to speed up his speech development?

I have a 2.4 year old and he doesn’t say half as much as yours we are aware he is slightly behind with his speech but appreciate boys can be slightly slower with this. If your really concerned I would speak with your HV but I’m not sure with Covid how much is happening in terms of speech clinics etc.

50 words is about average by the 2nd birthday, so I don’t think he’s too far behind. Just keep talking to him as much as you can. Reading books to him and looking at the pictures together is great as well.

Lots of talking to them, be clear and repetitive
Lots of singing, particularly songs that have associated actions and repetition.
Lots of reading, look for rhyme and repetition.
Try not to have background noise when you're talking to them. TV is fine if they're actively watching it, but don't have it on while they're playing/as background noise.

He sounds pretty much on target though so I wouldn't worry.

Definitely not your fault. I had a few people comment on ds1’s speech as he only said about 50 words at 2.3. People would ask why he wasn’t talking and was I not talking to him enough. Well I was, I spent so much time talking to him one on one, narrating everything since he was a tiny baby. Deep down I knew it wasn’t my fault but part of me did wonder for a while.

I had ds2 and with an 18 month gap he got a lot less one on one interaction than ds1 and I didn’t have time to spend time talking to him like ds1 as a baby and now he is 18 months he is so ahead with speech he says over 80 words, he’s where ds2 was at 2 and a half so I’ve decided it has very little to do with me and some are just more advanced with speech.