Toddler stopped talking to nursery staff after new baby - just a phase?

[MancAbroad]

Just wondering if anyone's experienced similar... Our toddler is almost 3 and has been in nursery since he turned 1. He genuinely loves it and we're really happy with it too. We had a baby in February and I think he's actually coped incredibly well at home, they're already great little friends and we only have odd moments of jealousy. However his main teacher at nursery said he's really stopped talking to them the last few months but he's great with the other children in his group. Has anyone else's toddler been through a similar phase after a new baby or big change and did it pass for you without any intervention? I just think if he wasn't at nursery we'd be non the wiser so don't think to get any speech therapy just yet?

A bit about languages that might be relevant, we speak English at home, his dad Italian so he learns bits and the nursery is mainly German speaking but teacher I spoke with is a native English speaker. To me it seems like recently he's been making massive leaps in his English and understanding of his other languages eg in the park at the weekend we sat near an Italian family and he heard them speak and said to me 'talking Italian!'

Sounds like he’s in two language rich environments. Growing up bilingual (at least) is good for his development.

It’s interesting that he’s fine with peers but stopped talking to the adults atm. I wonder if they’ve been asking about or mentioning new baby?

It could be that he sees Nursery as his space and doesn’t want think about or talk about his sibling. Just a theory as there’s often some sort of trigger.
I wouldn’t worry about Speech and Language Therapy at this stage.

That could be something actually, a few weeks after baby was born his teacher did ask me how he was with the new baby because he never talks about him to her (so at that point he must still have been talking to them generally) I'm sure they try to talk to him about other stuff though, she said if they ask a direct question at mealtimes he'll eventually answer very quietly so he's still speaking, just the bare minimum.
It's funny because I always ask him what he's eaten and he'll say something like 'Pasta! I said yes please pasta and I had some more' so maybe he's been aware he's not speaking much for him to mention what he's said!

Good he’s still speaking but it’s usually anxiety driven ( setting not home in his case) So as long as they’re not putting him under and pressure to speak and giving opportunities to answer with a nod or shake of the head for food etc may just be a phase.

It's really interesting that you mention the languages, because I was going to comment that we had something similar when my eldest was around 3. I spoke English to him at home, his father and nursery school spoke to him in the local language. He was late talking, but spoke both languages fluently as soon as he did, around age 2. Around age 3 and a half, he suddenly started to refuse to talk in the local language, only in English. They didn't make a big thing of it at nursery, they just continued talking to him in the local language because they knew he could understand them, and after about a month he started speaking both languages fluently again.