14 month old not making D sound when babbling

[Tiredmumtoboy]

So my 14 month old babbles alot. Says all sorts of made up words. used to say UP (he now just throws his arms up at us and stands infront of us.

He reaches out and grabby hands saying I I I I when he wants something (he sometimes points with index finger)

He calls me Mama and Baba. (sometimes whilst chasing me down)

He can say Hiya and Bubbles. He cannot do the D sound. No dadadada nothing. My husband is also Baba.

Is there an issue here?

Nope, sounds totally normal. They don’t just start off being able to say everything. I think the baba is probably dada, but he’s not hearing it quite right. Are you consistently using dada and not baba? Just keep going. Lots of reading and talking to him. Both of mine only ever really said one word by about 13/14 months. They’re in primary and secondary school now and have no SEN or language issues.

It's fine I'm sure.

Id say fine aswell my son couldn’t say S and his brother was Sam and he used to call him Ham 🤣. All fine now and that went on til he was about 2.5 I would say

He's 14 months

At 14 months it’s way too early to tell. It is more likely than not that it’s absolutely all 100 percent normal. My eldest barely said anything other than car, daddy and ta until he was 2.5 years old. He went to nursery and it was referred to a speech therapist who couldn’t see anything wrong with him and I was told to just keep talking to him. Then one day he started talking in full sentences and did all of his sister’s talking as well 🤣. So I really would not worry.

I generally think we put too much emphasis on early development. A sudden burst early on may be followed by a slower phase - and vice versa.

I do understand that it can be good to catch certain things early, but he isn't going to be seeing a speech therapist at 14 months, so just keep talking to him and try not to worry because that's all you can realistically do at the moment anyway.

We say Dada and daddy alot. We all call me Bubba in the house because my oldest always called me Bubba he still does (he was sounding a lot more letters at this age than my youngest)

Tbh the HV was talking about him seeing a speech therapist when she saw him at 10 months old for no reason. Not even prompted.

Except that issue of your overworrying, no not at this age. Kids are different and get there in their own time. They didn’t read the manual at what age to make certain sounds. If you aren’t worried otherwise let it go.

Well that sounds crazy to me.

Maybe that got you anxious op. He really is quite little and lots of children who are perfectly capable later on are not early talkers.

Try not to worry yet.

Just keep exposing him to sounds.

The only other thing I would say is I have been told that having tv, radio or other background noise can delay speech development because they a) can't hear the sounds as distinctly in all the din, and b) learn to tune out sound, rather than notice it.

But apart from those things I 'd just carry on for now.