My 6 mo doesn't babble - is that okay?

[VeryHungryKatypillar]

I wasn't remotely worried about this until I read the 'second review' questions in the Red Book today and one of the questions is "Does your baby babble (ba-ba, da-da etc)".

DD is 6 months next week and is still at the 'aruuuu' and 'abu' stage and doesn't really say much else, although she does squeal lots when excited.

Should I be concerned? Or am I doing my usual worrying about nothing?

I wouldn't worry. And I wouldn't pay too much heed to when they are 'supposed' to do certain things, it's easy to get hung up about little things like rolling, sitting up, crawling etc etc, but no baby completes ALL these milestones at EXACTLY the age they are 'supposed' to. More often they concentrate on one particular thing - my friend's little girl was fabulous at many physical skills eg crawling, walking, climbing etc but way behind her peers in speech.

I think that over use of dummies is supposed to be a barrier to speech development, for obvious reasons, so if she has a dummy then maybe limiting this will encourage more babbling, as will talking and singing to her lots yourself, but other than that she will do things in her own time!

Nah, I wouldn't worry. My 6mth old is at the 'teletubby' stage - eg lots of 'ahhhh' 'ohhhhh' sounds. Not real consonants yet.

When my DD1 was a baby, I read somewhere that if they didn't babble by 9 months it might be worth getting checked out. In the end, my DD first babbled just 5 days before she was 9 months. She's never had any other speech issues (well, apart from social anxiety so she won't speak in public, but no speech development issues anyway) so it was just one of those individual things.

Mine didn't babble until 9 months- and being paranoid I got her hearing checked which was completely normal. She is happily baba and dada ing away now at 12 months but no sign of any words- I think they just all do things in their own time...

great that your baby is vocalising- consonants can come between 6-9+ months. This is when they are starting to experiment with mouth shapes e.g. putting lips together, blowing rasberries making labial [b][m] sounds.

Try not to worry- plenty of time. Copy her sounds, babies love that and gives her reinforcment and praise of the noises she is making.

oh i worried about this around 6 months too - all this bloomin' milestone charts etc. vocalising is the main thing, i think, rather than what sound they make. complete silence would be a worry

i think she made her first consonant sounds around 7 months "dadadadada" and then it just went from there

just remember to talk lots to her and encourage her to copy you. i also found copying any sounds DD made thrilled her more than anything, so maybe try that, too. it's a great game to play in the car

Thanks everyone, I feel reassured. Will try to stop reading quite so much!!