2 year old speech, should I be worried?

[BeccaBloomwood]

My DD is coming up to 3 in February and misses off the consonant sound at the start of most of her words. Eg Tree is "ee", pop is "op", for longer words like sweeties its "ee-ees", presents "e-ens".

Her dad and I can understand her most of the time and we weren't too concerned by it until my dad made a comment about it when she was speaking to him on the phone. Should I be worried about this more? I've googled and gotten myself into a bit of a panic after reading that it's not that common? She can say certain words correctly like mummy, daddy etc and is putting little sentences together.

We do repeat what she says correctly and were just hoping she would correct herself but now I'm worried we need to be doing more? Yesterday I asked her to say "Buh" for B and she did, so then I asked her to say "bus" and she said "us".

Any advice would be gratefully received

Ask your GP or a referral for a hearing test and you can self refer to SaLT.

I wouldn't worry too much. My nephew just grunted up until he was 2 and then he went to nursery and realised he had to start talking to get ahead and within a matter of months he was chatting away merrily.
If your child wasn't saying anything at all I'd be concerned but the fact that she is trying is a great sign.
The more important thing is her understanding. If she understands then her words will follow eventually.
It's hard not to compare yourself child to everyone else's! We are all guilty of doing it.
If you continue to be concerned speak to your HV or GP about seeing a speech therapist for a professional opinion

@Thatwentbadly

Ask your GP or a referral for a hearing test and you can self refer to SaLT.

This

Get an appointment with speech and language with any luck by the time the referral comes through it will have sorted itself out, but if she needs some help you will already be in the system rather than joining the waiting list at 4.
My son had a very similar problem (also missed sounds in the middle of words) we had speech therapy for about 18months and top up in school (where the school couldn't believe he needed it as he had come on so well) you wouldn't know now that there was an issue.

My Ds is the same age, we are waiting for speech therapy now and had hearing checked, all fine. He actually doesn't say as much as your daughter but mummy and daddy are ee says sisters name and some w words and some h words although not much is clear. Misses the beginning of words. It is the consonants and he needs language therapy they said. I asked the health visitor and she started the ball rolling that was back in March. He's been on the list over 3 months now so hoping to hear early next year of a start date. Always worth asking if you feel you need to. Does she go to pre school or nursery, have they picked it up?

I worried about my son at that age - he replaced consonants with others. Everyone told me not to worry - but I got in touch with a speech therapist just to be sure - she contacted me and I was fully expecting her to say 'don't worry it's normal'. The upshot was he had a few sessions of speech therapy - I followed their lead and did similar at home. He still pronounced some things wrong at 7 (replaced R with W which is really common) - he's 20 now with no issues !

This is a really common thing in children where they have learned a word before they were able to say all the sounds in the word.
A speech therapist once explained this to me and gave the following advice, which I have used over and over again:
The child has filed the words in the drawer in their brain that they learned them in, so if they say 'us' for 'bus', they have filed the word bus in the 'u' drawer. We can get them to say 'b', and even 'bus', but when they need the word 'bus' they will go to the wrong drawer and pull out 'us'.
We need to ask the child to consciously 're-file' the word. So you ask them to pull the word out of the drawer and re-file it, by asking them a question. So when they say 'us', ask 'is it 'us' or 'bus'? By asking them to examine the word, it helps them to re-file it in the correct drawer, and makes them more likely to use the correct version at a later date.
I'd echo getting a referral for a SALT appointment in the meantime - it can take a while to come through, but if you don't need it in 6 months it is easy to cancel.

Thank you so much for your replies, I will phone my GP first thing tomorrow and get the ball rolling.

She goes to nursery 1 day a week and nothing has ever been mentioned in regards to her speech, she was on track for all areas in last report. Our 2 year check was done via a telephone appointment which was delayed due to Covid. I must have mentioned her speech during that appointment but I can't for the life of me remember what the HV said

Thanks again everyone

My daughter kept passing her NHS hearing test and when I had her tested privately turned out she has a distorted hearing curve which causing auditory processing disorder (now successfully treated) just be aware that the NHS often only pick up notable hearing loss rather than poor/distorted hearing especially at a young age.

Another child had glue ear so different cause and treatment but again needed SALT input too.