Son doesn't speak at nursery much - but does at home

[RubyrooUK]

My son is 24 months. He has gone to nursery full time since 9mo. He took a while to settle but has appeared happy since, with the same few workers caring for him all the time as it is a small family run place.

When I picked him up the other day, the staff had done an "observation" on him and said they were going to work on his vocabulary as he can't talk yet beyond a few words. They say he mainly babbles to himself as he "reads" books.

But he has been talking at home for months. Sometimes it is not clear (and he does pretend read books with babbling) but he also speaks 5-6 word sentences very clearly. So in the last 20 minutes, he has said:

"Mama, the bubbles aren't working. It's not working".
"Where's the train gone?"
"I shut the door now mama - oh no, where's dada gone? Oh dada! Where you gone?"
"Can I come up please?"
"Can you open this one please?"

...and lots of lazier sentences involving orders of a couple of words to get me to do things!

His key worker said she would try to spend more one-on-one time observing his talking. She gave me a sheet to fill in about what he does at home and suggested we make an appointment to come in and discuss it.

The thing is, DS always tells me he has had fun at nursery but while he is very assertive and loud at home, he is in a room with up to 5s now (he was apparently bored in the toddler room and now has unfettered access to the nursery library) so perhaps he is just shyer there.

My only real concern is if he is not talking because he is unhappy. When he started nursery at 9mo, he was already crawling at home. He didn't crawl at all at nursery for the first month and the staff only believed he crawled at home when I showed them video on my phone. But he walked at nursery as soon as he walked at home, so I thought that was a settling in thing.

Is this common? How should I approach this with the nursery? Any advice? Thank you!

Just to add, he can also count proficiently to 20, also recognising most of the numbers from 1-10 (he saw them on till signs in the supermarket last weekend and was shouting them all out) but he doesn't seem to do that at nursery either. I asked if he loved counting things and they didn't seem aware he could count at all.

Given that they know so much about him - what songs he likes, his favourite foods, his favourite books - I'm just surprised that he is behaving so differently or they are somehow missing it.

I had a similar experience with my son. I discovered he wasnt speaking at Nursery. When I asked him why he told me "the nursery ladys dont know me mummy"
I explained to him that the did know him and that the liked him very much and it would be a good idea to try some talking in nursery. After that he was fine and started talking away.

Maybe you could ask him why he isnt talking. He might tell you.

I did try Heather but I wasn't sure he really understood. He just wanted to play; I find it hard getting anything beyond yes/no answers to what he did at nursery that day.

I'll try again next week though.

My DS is the same age as yours Rubyroo and sounds very similar in terms of verbal ability. He also does not talk in situations where he is shy/ uncomfortable.

I know he talks to his childminder as freely as he talks to me and, TBH, I would be quite worried if he didn't. Do you think he doesn't talk at nursery because he isn't given the opportunity to (i.e. not having much 1:1 time) or is he being talked to lots and is not talking back? I think I would be asking them which of those they though it was.

Perhaps in the busy U5s room they are dealing with bigger, more demanding children and he is slipping through the net a bit, especially as he is happy to sit with a book (which my DS would do too!). What are the ratios in his room? I expect it is higher than in the U2s room so maybe he is just not getting that much of a look-in?

My son was just the same at nursery, it was just that he felt shy in front of ther people, rather than at home where he had doting parents hanging on his every word. He got more and more confident as time went on (he's now 4). Hopefully the same for your son and he'll grow in confidence soon.

My DD was like that, a complete chatter box at home, dead quiet at playgroup then nursery.

She's 12, she can be a bit shy still till she warms up to someone/adapts to a new situation, other than that she does fine.

I've found the same with both my DC.

DD is 3 1/2 and they recently gave me a report they'd done on her and it was totally inaccurate!
Obviously I can't account for how shy she is/isnt when she's there but I know what she's capable of with numbers, shapes, letters etc and they were way off.
It turned out that she prefers the girls and doesn't really like the boys (she has also told me this) and there are a couple of girls there who are not nice to her and some of the others (I also witnessed this behaviour when I picked her up once and the girl didn't know I was there). I had to mention it to the staff as DD was getting really anxious about going. Is it possible something like that is going on?

It's similar with DS (18 m) - he's been talking for ages now - asks for things, congratulates himself, labels things etc but they have only just started to see it.

I think that the poster's DC who said 'they don't know me like you mummy' was spot on. We understand them more, have more time for them and they feel more comfortable with us. Having said that, my DC will be moving nursery when I have DC3 so it'll be interesting to see if it continues or improves.

Thanks for all the messages.

EBD I'm trying to work out if he needs more one-to-one time at nursery or whether he just gets shy in a room with bigger kids. He mainly says he likes the big room though and he is often being incorporated into four year old girls games, so doesn't seem so shy with the other kids.

The staff ratio at his nursery is pretty good; it was 1 to 2 in the baby room and it's 1 to 3 in the toddler and big rooms. And they know what all his favourite bits of stories and songs are, so it just surprises me that they haven't seen this side of him.

Poche thank you too.

I was just so surprised by how inaccurate the observation of him was (not talking, or counting, very quiet). A bit like you experienced, I guess.

I'm not a mad parent thinking DS is a genius. When they say he doesn't know his shapes well, I admit I can't remember talking shapes with him very often. So there are gaps in his knowledge but he can talk in sentences and count, so I'm just surprised that he can conceal his constant noise and chatter levels so well.

My dd was virtually selective mute at pre-school and in reception. Was fine at home though.

In part I think it was just confidence, confidence that she had understood what was going on - she is very self conscience about making mistakes/getting things wrong. When she learnt to walk she pushed one of those rubbish toy buggies around that doesn't give any support for 2 months before she would go solo!

The big shift in her talking more was also as a result of having grommits fitted, I think the noisy/busy background at pre-school etc made it more work to listen and understand than at home and at other peoples houses. She had good friends at pre-school who she would happily play with outside of pre-school but not during the sessios

She's fine now, talks too much at school sometimes - she's 10

Thanks random. Interesting about the grommets - DS had two ear infections over the summer and the doctor told me to keep an eye on his hearing.

But seeing as he can hear the word Cheerios whispered through a closed door, while Peppa Pig plays, he doesn't seem to have any hearing issues that I can tell, even in a noisy environment.

Hopefully he is just shy and needs a bit of one-to-one time so the nursery workers can draw himself out of himself while he's there.

Glue ear causes hearing to come and go, so sometimes fine and sometimes it's not - it's just something that may have made him more shy at nursery and has set a precedent for how he behaves there IYSWIM.

My youngest with severe speech delay (again due to hearing issues) didn't give a hoot that no-one understood her at pre-school and she just chatted away regardless!