2.5 yr old suddenly started stammering

[loveisagirlnameddaisy]

My DD has always had really good speech since starting to talk at 18 months. Without wanting to sound bigheaded, just giving the facts, she has really good vocab, has always been able to make herself understood to strangers and can construct fairly complicated sentences. We have been able to have lengthy conversations with her for several months now.

Recently however, in the last couple of weeks and it's been getting more noticeable day by day, she's developed a stammer. Often at the beginning of sentences and not with new words. My partner and MIL (former nurse/midwife and excellent with children) consider it's a developmental stage and that she's possibly moving on a step with her thoughts but her language hasn't caught up yet.

I'm not so convinced as when she does get her sentences out, she's just saying simple things that she's been able to say for months.

I do have her developmental health check coming up so I will say something to the HV, but just wondered if other MNers had been through similar and if I should just relax and wait for it to pass. Or go to the GP and see what he thinks about a possible referral to a speech therapist?

Hi, my DS had this at a similar age. His vocab was great, he has always been a chatterbox and very good at expressing himself. Then he started to stammer, and it got worse over a couple of weeks. I was really upset but the advice from the HV was to ignore and arrange a ST referral (self referral in this area) - and she predicted that the stammer would disappear before the appointment came through. It literally disappeared overnight! I've since spoken to an acquaintance who is a speech therapist, and she told me it's very common and more often than not it rights itself within a few weeks. Hope this helps.

What aftereight said. DS2 was awful for about 2 months. She said it's just his mouth couldn't keep up with his brain.

Thank you so much for the reassurance. I was wondering if it was something like that but as with all new and unfamiliar developments, they can be rather unsettling at the time!

aftereight by self referral do you mean I don't go through GP or HV? I just find out where my nearest NHS speech therapy unit is and contact them for an appointment?