16-month-old's speech. MIL has me worried, again.

[Kiki92]

Hey!

MIL has informed me that my DS, (16 months) has delayed speech. She literally said those words to me... I'm not panicking, because she said the same about his mobility and he's walking confidently now. Yet I still have a niggling feeling in the back of my head. So, yeah, some clarification would be nice please, fellow mummas!

DS can say "mumma", "Dadda", "yes", "baby", "dog", "good girl", my parent's dog's name, and my dad's first name. His understanding is good too. If I ask him where a certain toy is he'll go and find it, and when I say 'bye' he'll wave.

Is that normal a normal amount of speech for a 16-month old? It seems a reasonable amount to me, or am I delusional?

I talk to him constantly. I basically narrate everything I do around the house. I read to him every night. Could I be doing more?

I wasn’t talking by 3 and a half!
The doc said that wasn’t ‘normal’ but I’d catch up (which I did)
Years later my mother said the same about my daughter at about the same age
I think she could have throttled my dad when he pointed out that she was talking the right amount for her age and it took me much longer (he pointed out they understand-then start speaking)
If you listen to her I was chatting away at birth!
Ignore her-he sounds just right

Sounds fine to me...and I actually have a child with delayed and disordered speech

That’s loads. My ds had that at 24 mo and wasn’t considered “delayed”. At 27 months at his he check he had more words than I could count.

My son (grown up Cambridge graduate) was slow to talk properly and I had a lot of remarks from my DM about how much more advanced I was at that age. All nonsense of course, and his understanding was way better than his speech. I like to think that I understood him well too - he was a very easy baby, and there was no particular need for him to speak as he was busy doing other things and his every need was anticipated! If you're happy with your DS's progress, ignore everyone else. They know NOTHING! You need to practice the smile and nod, smile and nod response. What the hell does she expect you to do about it anyway?

None of my dc walked before 16 months and your dc speech sounds fine and but you could see your hv for confirmation.

Your MIL clearly doesn't have a clue about child development and her comments are not helpful.
Your DS sounds like he is doing absolutely fine. You generally see a big increase in vocabulary between age 2 and 2 and a half.

I'm a portage teacher. It's fine!

DD is 19 months nearly and says mummy, daddy, bye bye, bubble. Very occasionally we get ta.

However she understands what we say, can fetch things if we ask, and clearly 'talks' to us just in her baby language! She also has fantastic motor skills, can hold a pencil almost like a grown up, and would happily climb up a ladder if we'd let her! So at the moment she's just putting her energy into movement.

So at 16 months that's a great range of words I would say, nothing to worry about