My DS still not talking at 17 months

[archiesmummy]

Hiya,
My DS is still not talking and he is soon 17 months old.
He says mamma and dadda and very recently started saying bye bye but I'm not sure if this is just a coincidence as most of the time when he waves he says dada but sometimes he says bye bye.

I'm Swedish and my partner is English and I try to speak swedish with DS but find it difficult as I tend to get distracted and start speaking english all the time.
Will this confuse DS a lot? Will it slow down him speaking either language?

When did your bilingual DC start speaking?

archiesmummy, ds started to speak (proper complete sentence) when he was two. We speak Italian at home and he started to go to nursery twice a week (to be in an english environment) when he was 15 months.

I think you should try to speak to him only in one language

my non-bilingual ds1 didn't start speaking until nearly 2. ds2 is heading the same way I think (16mo yesterday and says mamamamamama and shriiiiiieeeeekkkkkkkk). I didn't speak until I was 2.

My ds wasn't bilingual but, he didn't speak properly (mostly babble) until he was 4, when the nursery/school put him into speech therapy. Turned out he was a bit lazy (bless) and I understood his babble so didn't make much of an effort to make him say words properly.
He is a teeenager now and due to the speech therapy (mostly) he is well above average for English (and his other core subjects).
If he responds to you, it most probably isn't a hearing problem. Maybe talk to your HV, (if she's a good sympathetic one) but I know at least 3 children (friends of dd) who didn't talk much at all until they were 22 - 24 months and you wouldn't notice the difference now (they're now 4).

My dds are bilingual. DD2 is only 8 mo, DD1 3.8 yo is very verbal and had about 10 words at 13 mo i think. do try to stick with the Swedish as it wont help if you chop and change. It generally takes bilingual kids longer to speak (tho in a study they found it was a matter of weeks rather than months) but eventually he'll be speaking both languages and you'll be glad you persisted. I can give you a list of god, inspiring (non-academic) books on bilingualism tomorrow if you like.

good books, not god!

We only speak english, DD1 is 17mths and only says mamma dadda no and then others that sound like words we say but may not be.

ds (2.2) is speaking in small sentences but only recently. he knows lots of words but doesn't use many of them. his childminder speaks to him in french so he is sort of bilingual and is also just starting to use a few french words.

DD 16 months, says, hiya, this and yes and that is it babbles alot but pretty sure she will talk well in her own time.

ChasingSquirrels LOL to the shriiiiiieeeeekkkkkkkk, just like my DS.

Malaleche list of good books, not god, sounds great thanx.
Thank you all for the advise

ok, will post them tomorrow

my dd1, who was monolingual at the time, was only saying mamma, dadda, at this age.

dd2, who is tri-lingual, is only just starting to speak clearly, aged 3 1/2.

My neice and nephew were both very late talkers - they were trilingual (English father, Spanish mother living in a Catalan town) It's bound to be slower for bilingual children.

Actually, in my second hand, so maybe not valid experience, it does seem to be very important that each parent sticks to their own language when speaking to the children. My brother didn't do this as his Spanish is much better than my SILs English - so they were essentially a Spanish speaking family. I think it's made it much harder for the children - who are only just - at 11 and 7 apporaching bilingualism.

isnt it normal for bi lingual children to not speak ubtil at ;east two

my friends ds is english/dutch speaking and a four has not caught up with the others yet

do not stress - he is learing twice as much

my ds is 15 months mono lingual and saying nada

Ok, I won't stress about it.

I realise I will have to make more of an effort to speak my language and not english, I'm just so self consious

Thanx all for reassurance, good night

sorry, here are the books:

Growing up with two languages by Una Cunningham-Andersson and Stefan Andersson

The Bilingual family by Edith Harding-Esch and Philip Riley

and the other one i cant remember the title or author and ive lent it to a friend, will search the net and post after.

Raising Multilingual Children: Foreign Language Acquisition and Children (Hardcover)
by Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa

of the three i liked this one best but they all have something to offer, hth

my child is 19 months, says next to nothing, mama dad (occasionally) Ro Ro (his sister) and thats it. He does sign sometimes as my friends little boy is deaf so we've tried to all learn, not sure that makes any difference but he can sign much more than he can speak. I would definitly keep up the two languages, and don't be put off by people making less than helpful comments about his 'lack' of speach. Good luck

Dd (2.6) started speaking clearly around 2 but has always been very vocal. She's bilingual Dutch/English and mixes the languages slightly at the moment. Now we have a verbal explosion going on and she repeats and speaks loads, both languages. Keep at speaking to your DS Archiesmummy, it takes a bit of practice but after a while you'll have lovely conversations with him in Asda's and forget yourself and start to speak very loudly and get funny looks (well I do anyway)!!

Thank you all for the encouragement. DH is going to see his family for a week now, so have a a great opportunity to do only swedish for a bit. Maybe that's what I need to get focused...

Thanx Malaleche for the recommendations, will have a look if I can find them in my local waterstones or if I have to order online. The first one caught my attention as it looked like one of the co writers is from my home country

I know I shouldn't let it bother me, but my friends DD started speaking before a year and now, 2 months younger than my DS, knows a whole load of words but then she was very slow at everything else..
Again, thank you all

Hi,
I also read "Raising Multi-lingual Children" and found it very useful.
We are a trilingual household. I am Norwegian, my husband is Polish and we live here in London.

My youngest, 23 months is now learning new words ever day, whatever the language. he says Chu Chu BIL rather than car, and "SE, RAIN", etc And he also makes up his own words, hi says NU for dog... lOL

slightly different but my DS (18 months) isn't talking either but he was exposed only for Russian until he was 12 mnths when he switched to English so his language will inevitably be delayed. However I dont think that 17/18 mnths is particularly delayed. Plenty of children don't speak until they're 2.

I don't worry about it and don't think you should either.

I met up with a friends DS last week and he is MUCH further ahead on language which did make me feel a bit selfconscious. However looking at it rationally, my DS was much further ahead physically, walking, climbing stairs etc. They all develop at different raes.