Possible weird first words

[Dawnb1183]

Is my child different? So she is 2 years and 2 months and with her speech it's like her first words seem to be more about trying to form a sentence, other that the normal mum, dad she says things like, "what's this, what's that, over there, I don't know, oh no, oh dear, what's wrong, another one, bye bye" but trying to get her to say individual things/items like cat, dog, ball, etc is like trying to pull teeth from her. Is this normal for her speech?

It’s not weird.
She could be a Gestalt language processing child. Where they learn in sentences/phrases rather than single words. Repeating on the phases and the intonation can be something called echolalia.

If you have any worries, like certain milestones not being met, just chat with your health visitor.

Sounds pretty normal to me. She's repeating what she hears you say probably?

Speech and language therapist here. I have two baby grandchildren (11 months and 19 months) and just spend hours observing them. I love the various markers of early language development. So much is going on, first words do not emerge out of the context of the rest of development.

Children do progress differently. I did think about her being a Gestalt processor, but that is not the point of my post. It may also be that she hears you trying too hard and is repeating that - you really should avoid asking “what’s that?”, counter intuitive I know but avoiding asking questions is one of the first pieces of advice we give.

Then I would seek the opinion of your health visitor.