18 month old speech regression

[AdviceForFirstTimeMum]

Hi- looking for advice and hopefully someone to tell me I’m unnecessarily worried.
My little girl is 18 months old and until now her speech and all milestones have been reached as expected. Last month I would have even said she was ahead of where I would have expected with speech and easily had at least 50 words she used regularly (she’s a real chatterbox).
I’ve notice the last week she has just completely regressed though. She still says a few of the basics, “Mum” “Dad” “No” “Yeah” “Up” and makes animal sounds (roars when she sees a lion, woofs when she sees a dog etc.) but with everything else she seems to have just reverted to noises/babbling/intonations (OOOOooooh… wossatt?). I try to answer her “wossatt?”s and give her space to answer with words I know she knows, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

I’ve absolutely done the wrong thing and googled.
Dr Google tells me it can be because they are developing new gross motor skills like walking or climbing. DD has been walking unaided for 4 months now and climbing long before that, so don’t think it could be this.
It can be because of a life changing event. Again, there is nothing here, no moving house, no new baby, no change of childcare and I’ve been back at work for 6 months and DD is well settled at nursery.
And the other obvious thing to come up is autism.
At this point other than this sudden regression I have no reason to suspect autism, however I’m now going to be on heightened alert.

Has anyone else experienced this type of regression, and what was the outcome?
Before I noticed this regression I did see she was starting to try to string two words together and also trying to sing, so maybe it is related to that…

Any advice/experiences welcome.

Hello!
I have not direct experience with this. But I belive i have red that autistic regressions are more common in kids which have less than 10 words and/or already a bit delayed.
However, I belive one week is to little to worry immediately. She could be just unwell, or working on other milestones (maybe even on combining words). If you see that in one month things have not changed than I would contact your HV but not now. It might even be something like theeting or sore throat.

Is she still engaging non verbally by ponting , nodding etc? If yes I would really just wait. I belive autistic regressions would affect general communication as well (eg gestures).

Thanks for replying.

Yes- she is still engaging (pointing, shaking her head) and yesterday when I got home she was full of smiles and “mum” and “up!”asking to be picked up.

I’ve got a bit of a sore throat myself so do think she may have had one too.

I’ll give her a bit more time before I really start worrying, as I go through moments of just thinking I’m being ridiculous, then the middle of the night worries set in. I think I just needed someone else to tell me what I know (she’s fine, give it time!) because I can’t put my finger on a particular reason for it.

Who knows, maybe she’ll wake up next week stringing words together perfectly and I’ll look back at my concerns and see they were pointless!

When my very verbal LO had hand moth and feet disease he did not speak (or just minimal to get his wants met) for over a week because he was having pain in his mouth. Really I would first consider this kind of possibilities based on your description of her.