1 year old calls everything ‘da’ or ‘dada’

[Oohooh]

My 12 month old son babbles a lot but calls everything ‘da’. His toys, animals, people - everything is ‘da’ or occasionally ‘dada’. He’ll point at something, turn to me and say ‘DA!’. Is this normal?

He does also say mamama (not in context just as babble) as well as a few other sounds, but 70% is just da or dadada.

His understanding is fine (he knows about 30 objects/people in context and will either point at them or go to them if asked), but his verbal language doesn’t seem to reflect his understanding. He seems fine in all other ways, sleeps and eats well, shows/brings me toys and will clap if asked etc

Thanks

Totally Normal

Perfectly fine a 1year old should have between 0 and5 words.

I have twin girls, about the turn 1. One of them is exactly the same; EVERYTHING is da or dada. She can say mama and ta but will always say dada. We’ve recently had our 12 month Health Visitor appointment and was told this is completely normal. The girl just loves saying dada!

14 months over here, and yes this is totally normal. DD will point at dogs and say ‘dagda’…sounds very much like dada but there is a very small difference (and it helps that she points too 😂). Everything else is ‘da’ which I take to mean ‘this’ as it seems she’s showing me something she wants.

My friends daughter did the same. Everything was ‘dada’ if she didn’t know the name of it. She grew out of it quickly

There would only be concerns if he was still like this at his 2 year check. Children learn their speech at different speeds. Some do the baby babble and others don’t. I took both my children to baby sign language classes and they were both able to communicate by signing around the age of 12 months but we had been using signs as parents since they were born. My eldest wasn’t speaking at her 2 year check but they weren’t worried as she had over 100 signs. So they knew she could make her communication understood. She did eventually speak just before she was 3 and went straight into full sentences. My youngest started using baby babble and sounds and had gradually progressed to words by the time she was 2. She was more single words and 2-3 word short sentences. Then longer.

What did also seem to help was singing. My youngest who didn’t speak did sometimes say song words in context when we sang and signed songs.

Suggestion would be to do lots of narration of what your baby is doing and emphasising key words - nappy, milk, cake, mummy, daddy etc. lots of repetition. If they’re babbling then in the gaps respond back to them maybe sing words in context to what they’re doing.

If by 2 they haven’t made progress then the health visitor may refer for speech therapy but you might be surprised in that it all comes together in a few months.

Also should add that ‘da’ is one of the first sounds they can actually make with their voice/mouth. And ma/mama is actually really hard to make the sounds of and why it often comes later.

Also when trying to use words in context with them make a big over emphasis on your mouth and how you make the sounds as they can start to copy.

He won't understand what it means.. but the letter D or da or dada is the easiest pronunciation for babies.. even babies in every other country usually say da or da da first..

Language doesn't reflect understanding at this age. As long as his comprehension is good you don't need to worry about speech for a long time yet.

Just to revisit in case somebody stumbles across this in future, DS is now 13.5 months and over the last week has started saying dada, car and clock in context as well as an animal noise. So looks like it is a precursor to talking - he still says ‘da’ but it sounds more like ‘that’ and he always says it when pointing at something. So I think it’s a kind of ‘look at that’.

Thanks for the update OP.

That's pretty much how babbling works. The baby has a small range of sounds they can make, and conveys meaning through the sounds available to them. DS started speaking like that - he could really only say "ba" and the people who knew him closely could tell whether a particular "Baba" meant mummy, daddy, biscuit, bubble, teddy etc.

DD started speaking in a less typical fashion - she had animal noises and tunes with meaning down to a fine art before she used actual words.