what should a 7mth old do speech-wise?

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My dd2 has always been a really quiet baby. She cries when hungry or tired, she does a feeble moan if she's wanting attention and she laughs at her big sister. She has just started to do what I can only describe as 'growling' (!) - and other than that she makes no sounds! No consonants at all, no sing song babble to herself. Almost everyone who meets her comments on how quiet she is. She passed her newborn hearing test and I'm sure she hears fine now. Do you think I should be concerned or is she just a quiet girl? Thank you

I wouldn't worry too much at this stage, as she's still very young, but if she hasn't progressed to some kind of babbling in the next couple of months, I think I'd call your HV for some advice or make a GP appointment just to check that there isn't any kind of tongue tie issue or similar which is stopping her forming sounds. Try giving her different textures to chew or suck, as that could strengthen the muscles around her mouth and help speech development.

It might be worth making some basic sounds to her as a kind of game, and encouraging her to copy.

I think ds' were starting to say ga, ba and da from about this stage, but they are all very different, and ds2 has been mouthy from the start!