Please help I’m worried sick about my almost 14 month lld

[Monroebeae]

Hi mamas,

I’m actually an American mama but whenever I look on google, the mamas on this website are always SOOO helpful so I’m sorry to hijack your website!

I have a beautiful almost 14 month old baby girl. She was always physically ahead, rolled, crawled, and walked very early. Her communication milestones have always been slower. She didn’t babble until 2 days after she turned 10 months. She has great joint attention and social referencing. She doesn’t point yet but she does sometimes point with her whole hand to things outside, and of course she reaches for things she wants in the house and will look back at me and grunt if she wants something. Here’s where I get concerned: she continues to improve on her mimicking and imitating of actions. She’s doing well with that. But she does NOT try to copy sounds or words. She hasn’t said any words yet, she just babbles, and won’t try to copy any words. There was a period about 2 months ago where she would try to copy “banana” and “papa” but she doesn’t do that anymore. The only sound she will copy is when I stick my hand over my mouth and go “wahwahwa” she will always copy that. Im starting to get worried sick and I’m just looking for some encouragement. Oh she does sign for “help” “milk” and “more”.

Hello! We have a 14mo boy who is exactly the same. He repeats mamamamama or dadadada or similar but not to anything specific and only started to do this I'd say about 11-12m. He will point to things (like his tea mug or stickers on the wall or anything he wants, like the broomstick, lately...).

He was also advanced physically (very sturdy from birth, walked with aid at 9m and alone at 11m).

I'm no expert (my first baby) but I am not worried at all, he is happy, eats well, sleeps (ish) well and generally likes life so I am sure he'll get to speaking in his own time (and I will be sad he is not silent anymore, I am very sure of that one).

Wow I’m so glad I’m not alone!

Just a view from the other side, DD is almost 13 months and is a proper chatterbox but she has only on Xmas day pulled herself up and stood by herself for the first time. She only crawled around 10 months and is now a prolific crawler but we are far away from walking, rolled at six months and couldn't get into a seated position by herself until 10 months either.
I really think if they are focused on one thing they 'lag' a bit on the other, and it does eventually even itself out. DD does have words and used gestures quite early to get stuff she wanted but she couldn't get it for herself, it sounds like your little girl is able to do that by herself so doesn't need to communicate with you to do it for her.
If you are properly worried you could discuss it with your doctor but when mentioned all my concerns to the health visitor she told me that there are such big windows for things to be achieved in and as long as they are 'on the track' (ie DD couldn't pull to stand at her one year check so completely 'failed' everything on the gross motor skills ASQ for 12 months but she could do all the actions on previous ones that led to walking like crawling and reaching) then you shouldn't worry. It sounds like your DD is doing all the precursors to talking. Also DD 'pointed' with her whole hand for months before moving on to actual pointing and I mentioned it to the HV who said that was also considered 'normal'
I know how hard it is not to worry but she's eventually done everything she needed to - and I've just learnt to celebrate all her achievements and not worry too much about where she isn't quite there yet as long as she's still on track.

Also I don't recall DD ever properly copying my noises - she just learnt words because I talk a lot to her and pronounce things - for example she can say 'there kitty' (actually De Kitteh but she points at the cat and eyeballs him so it's clear what she's saying) but she didn't copy the sounds I made to say it - she just came out with it one day when the cat was staring in at us from the patio doors willing us to open them (everyone in our house requires us to do things for them it seems!) Same with saying Daddy - she whispered dadada under her breath for ages and then came out with dada first and now quite often daddeee. She also inexplicably yells Ya Ya at the cats and we have no idea what it means as it's not similar to either of their names.
I used to tie myself up in knots worrying about the gross motor skills and how she was so behind and she would never walk and convinced something was wrong but I've learnt to step back and focus on what she can do and just work with her and wait it out until she's ready to do stuff - it really sounds like your DD is doing just perfectly, she's just focusing her efforts on other parts of her development.

Nothing you're saying is at all worrying IMO. She sounds lovely. It's really early to be too worried about speech. Mine had brilliant understanding and could understand some quite complex things by 14MO such as 'behind you' etc but really didn't say a whole lot until 18MO. She's still quite unclear but she doesn't shut up at 33MO, says at least 500 words (attempted to count them the other day but got bored haha) and talks in long sentences with some quite sofisticated vocabulary at times. Trust me you'll probably be wishing for a minute's silence soon enough ... The only thing I'd do is get her hearing screened but otherwise don't panic xx

Since she’s babbling and communicates with you using a few signs and some other gestures, I think the main thing they would look for at this age is her understanding. Can she respond to things like ‘come here’, ‘get your teddy’, ‘where’s daddy?’ or ‘do you want a drink?’?

There’s a huge range of when the words come, so whilst I think the average is a few words at 14 months, both no words and a few dozen words are well within the range of normal development. I also think that at this age, any sound used consistently to mean someone/something counts as ‘a word’ — it doesn’t matter if it sounds nothing like the actual word.

I’ll also say that I have an early talker, and she didn’t obviously start trying to copy our words until she could say dozens of words herself and make 2-3 word phrases. Now she’ll ask what something is, and then may then repeat the word, or repeat a phrase we’ve just used, but like zaffa’s daughter, her first words were all about the actual object. She had no interest in saying ‘duck’ back to me because I’d said it, but would happily squeal ‘duh!!!’ at the sight of any real duck, rubber duck, or drawing of a duck.

I feel like she understands “come here” is hit or miss but she’s been able to know “where is” for months with certain things. She will immediately look at the person or object. Understands when I say “go to your highchsir/bath/night night/brush your teeth/etc. is that okay??

She also knows do you want to eat/drink/go outside/etc things like that

That all sounds so normal OP. DD is hit and miss with come here - I'm fairly certain she knows what it means but she's strong willed and not keen on doing things she doesn't want to! Your DD sounds completely on track.

There was this really interesting series on Netflix about how babies develop and about how they learn words and they said that they do it by elimination. So if you say there's doggie in four or five situations they have to consider each one to find the common object to work out what a doggie is (like sometimes there is also a stick or a ball) it sounds very complex! I'd highly recommend watching it, it shows all the stages before speaking and walking and such like too that they go through which will help put your mind at rest xx

That sounds pretty normal to me in terms of understanding, so it sounds like all the building blocks for speech are there, and probably the words will come in their own time. If you just feel like something isn't right, a hearing test, as Jannt86 suggests, seems to be the first thing to check.

If you want to have a wee look at the developmental questionnaires they use here (the ASQs zaffa mentioned), the 12 and 14 month ones are at steeplechasepedi.com/wp-content/uploads/Forms/ASQ/ASQ-3-12-M.pdf and steeplechasepedi.com/wp-content/uploads/Forms/ASQ/ASQ-3-14-M.pdf. Note that they don't expect all 'yeses' – 35/60 is 'on track' for communication in both, and also that the 14 month one runs to 14 months, 30 days, so even if your wee one isn't quite there yet, she may well get there in the next month.

Thank you all so much !!!