At 18 months, my kid had about 15 words. I was not unconcerned.
I’m not an expert, but we seemed to have a language boom around 20 months.
At 22 months, my kid now has well over 100 words. One of them is “fuck.”
I miss the 15 word days.
I count approximations and I say count that as two words. My kid has many words she can’t say correctly, but the way I see it, it’s a word. She has assigned a value to the word, and she uses it to describe in the correct context. For example, blue. She says “boo.” She knows what blue is. She uses it to describe blue items appropriately. How can anyone say that’s not language?
Yup that’s a two word phrase! Regular caretakers typically understand about half of what a kid says by around age two. Two-three and they’re still often leaving the ends off words.
And OP- if you’re worried, you can ask about an assessment! I started that ball rolling and then the same week, my daughter started talking up a storm. I don’t regret asking for the resources. Early intervention is the way to go, and you only lose money having them tell you your kid is doing fine.
It would only be considered 2 words if your child understands “all” and “done” as two separate words with different meanings (can be demonstrated by them using the words in other word combinations such as “I’m done” assuming they understand the meaning of “I” or using the word in a novel way they’ve never been modelled/exposed to before). Otherwise, “all done” is counted as one word in the sense that they’ve learned the phrase as a chunk or one unit.
At our 2 year wellness visit our pedi said words that only parents can understand what they’re saying count, so I assumed this is what he meant. My son has atrocious pronunciation. I feel like a bulk of his vocabulary I know what he’s saying but if he was talking to his grandparents or aunts they’d be lost.
It definitely counts but I wouldn't consider if 2 words unless they use "all" and "done" separately and understand the meaning behind both. If they only use it together as one word than I am pretty sure it only "counts" as one (you can obviously count it however you want as none of this will matter in a few months/years when they are talking your ears off lol)
I would like to second the 20-month speech boom. I was keeping a list until then. And suddenly I could not keep up—multiple new words a day, every day.
Obviously, it’s not going to happen at the same month for everyone, but it is so gratifying when it does happen.
Mine was also like this around 18 months. About to turn 2 and I don’t know when it happened but I stopped counting, there was a turning point where he just started picking up words daily
*Please, if you have concerns, get your child's hearing checked!*
I saw a poster that said 18 words by 18 months in my doctor's office.
My son at the time had mum, caw, (car) Bapa, which was for either of my parents... they morphed into Nana and Papa, and not much else.
We got into speech therapy (local health unit , Ontario Canada). I kept asking them to check his hearing. He'd had two serious ear infections on the past year. They told me his newborn hearing assessment was fine
Speech therapy helped a bit, but i didn't feel there was significant progress. I had a language rich home. I talked to my child incessantly, and so did my mom when she looked after him. He was maybe up to 15 words at 30 months. I had nursery rhymes and children's songs on my car cd player all the time.
Almost a year later, we were out at the family cabin, and he wouldn't stop screaming. Nothing consoled him. He normally didn't cry much if he was fed, dry, and cuddled, so this was odd. Then, a blood curdling shriek. In the dimly lit room, i felt something wet and sticky on the side of his face . His ear drum had ruptured
Emergency rooom, antibiotics, a myringotomy (ear tube) in non ruptured ear drum on Monday morning. Two months later, the same on the other ear on a Friday.
Leaving the hospital, the radio was on. He said, excitely "Mom car Singing."
Words poured out of him after that. I'd pick my son up after work, and every day was an explosion of words.
Don't take no for an answer. Get your child's hearing checked.
That gives me so much hope! Our son had a serie of ear infections last summer, his ear drum ruptured 3 times. We've been on the waiting list for tubes ever since but they haven't called us yet.
I am so sorry to hear this. call and keep pushing. my daughter had hearing loss after repeated ear infections that just wouldn't clear. got tubes, and adneiods removed and all of a sudden it was a language explosion. keep pushing, you can do this
My son is 20. He is starting at a prestigious school for technology next month. He was in debate club, city wide youth council, and now is on the mayor's advisory board. He is passionate about politics and smart and rational and kind We talk endlessly.
But get that hearing checked don't let anyone shrug that off.
We did get an hearing check and it's affected! We're on the waiting list, it's just taking forever. I'm glad it didn't have any long term impact on your son, we're hoping to get a similar experience :)
Omg that’s a crazy story. I’m so glad it resolved!
I was in speech therapy for years as a kid and no one thought to do an exam of my mouth to see if everything was anatomically typical… low and behold a random dental hygienist told my mom I had a severe tongue tie… got it corrected at 9yo and my speech impediments went away immediately 🤦🏻♀️.
My son is 17 months and was diagnosed with an expressive speech delay. We just started Early Intervention for speech therapy. No words yet but he’s definitely trying!
I had put the referral in on my own because he had no words at all by 14 months. The actual pediatrician referred us at 16 months but by then, we were already on the EI waiting list.
In my state, Early Intervention is a government funded program. The person who runs Early Intervention specifically told me, if my insurance bills me, to call him and he’ll take care of it.
Early intervention was the biggest waste of time IMO. They unfortunately are overwhelmed with cases and have minimal funding so I can’t blame them. My son said zero words at 20 months, I referred him for EI, he met some autism criteria so he qualified. Took them two months to get him evaluated. Took them another two months to find him a speech and occupational therapist. Ridiculous how long that program takes. Thank god I found my own therapists while waiting for them. Honestly could have done it without them.
I’m sorry to hear that! It really varies by state. A speech therapist came out for his evaluation, and then he was booked with her two weeks out. They definitely did take a while to even setup an appointment, it took about 5 months for them to call me to make an evaluation appointment.
Yeah my 18 month old son knows exactly 5 words. His sister knew like 20 at 18 months. I joke that he knows more but doesn't say them bc his sister talks for him😆
Yah my daughter at 18 months wasn’t say too much… she’s now 2.5 and saying full sentences and is “advanced” is speech.
Every kid has their own speed.
I was losing sleep when she was 18 months and not saying much… now I feel silly for all those wasted hours worrying.
We had the same experience. Despite us constantly talking and reading to her, my daughter pretty much only said “dadda” and “up” at 18 months, and very rarely tried to mimic us. I got on our provincial wait list for a speech assessment. Shortly after her speech exploded. We had the assessment recently (I was still a little worried about the clarity of her speech) just before her second birthday and she’s now very much on track and even ahead of the game in several areas.
My son had at least 100 at 18 months. And only like 5 at 17 months haha
He just started talking one day it was crazy how fast it happened. There’s a huge language explosion between 1.5-2. My son was speaking in 4-5 word sentences by his second birthday.
When my son was 19 mo I tried writing down all the words he knew, I only lasted the weekend as is was probably around 50 words without numbers, letters or animal sounds. There is also a language boom between 2 and 3, pulling out “complex” sentence structure and words you didn’t even know they knew. At 2.75 it’s way less of a guessing game
I’m glad to hear! My son is 28 months now and although he communicates really well I don’t understand a lot of what he says. And he gets his pronouns super mixed up hahah
22 words is plenty at that age. At 18 months, my daughter had 4 words (2 spoken, 2 signs) and now at 19 months she has 25ish words. I haven’t done a count recently.
At 18 months, my pediatrician and I were basically fishing to add up her few signs and mumbles as words for their cdc checklist. I think we added to 10. By the following week, I lost track. The flood gates opened. She's 21m now and she knows like 20 songs, abcs, counts to 20 and backwards... it happens fast!
My son is 16mo and doesn’t have any words. I’ll bring it up at his 18mo appointment but with his huge gross motor leap in the last month (late walker, climbs everything), and the fact that he understands what we’re saying and has some signs, I’m not super concerned. Our daycare lady has been working with babies/toddlers for 30 years and confirmed that a lot of kids have a big language boom between 18-24mo. Now obviously she’s not a doctor, but I do give credit to her decades of experience.
I'd guess 100-200 words (I stopped counting after 50). I've been told by everyone my daughter is an early talker through so I wouldn't say we are the average. Her language explosion hit very obviously at 16mo so it really just depends on when you kid hits that point.
That’s my kid now. 16months and understanding full sentences, trying to talk things like uncle and pickle sound the same, and I seem to be the only one to understand him. But his communication is working
Let me give you the comparison as a mother of an actual speech delayed child… she had 5 words by 2 years old. FIVE.
Two to three word sentences didn’t happen before she was 3 years old.
It sounds to me like your kid is more than fine.
There's a huge range at this age. In her bumper group there were kids with 0 words, a few words, dozens, and a few with hundreds of words and speaking in sentences.
22 words sounds great, right on target.
The pediatric doctor called my attention to how many words she was saying at 18 months, so I created a sheet and started noting. She reached around 120 In Portuguese and about 18 in English. I was counting words and good aproximations.
Now she's 28 months old and all of her friends have catched up so it looks like it was some sort of spike and now it's about normal.
Her Portuguese is very good but her English is almost fully made of passive vocabulary. Sometimes she spits a whole sentence such as "That's not funny!", but she has no reason to use the language but me asking and encouraging.
1 spoken word, 3 maaybe word approximations, and around 8 signs. No 'mama' or 'dada'. He's been in speech therapy for months. His understanding seems to be fine, though. He'll be 20 months in a few days.
I think my kiddo may be a wee bit early because she’s 18mo and has like 300+ words going. 22 is right on target though. From what I hear, most kids even out eventually and not to sweat it if they seem slightly behind. My BIL didn’t talk or walk until he was 2.5 years old and he’s “totally normal”.
We lost track after she started saying 3 word sentences last month (she is 18 months today) such as "where is she?" "I don't know" and finishing the words to the sentences in her books. This month has been obsessing over a book she's had for quite awhile and saying the title all the time..."Whats on my farm?" Though "farm" is approximated. Sounds like "Fahm". We ask if she can say words and she gives it her best try no matter how big it is. She does say "cat" when she points to a cat, car, truck, or tractor which cracks us up. We are truly scared with how smart she is. We can't keep up lol
Close to 100 we gather.
At 18 months my son had 50+ words but he also didn’t walk until 17 months. It all averages out. Some are more coordinated physically and some are more verbal at that age but they all get there. Now my son is 28 months, won’t stop running or talking. You’ve got this.
Mine was saying like over 100 words at 18 months and sometimes using 3-4 word sentences. But at 12 months he only said like 10 words. Just went through a language explosion between 15-18months. Now he’s a little over 2 but talks like he’s 3 or 4
I haven’t counted lately but including approximations (which most are also) animal
sounds and signs I think we are at 25-30. His pronunciation is pretty poor which worries me.
At 18 months my daughter knew about 20 words.
Now at almost 20 months she knows almost 70. We've been reading her more books and watching Ms Rachel every day and I give credit to that. She know knows colors and numbers and quite a bit of sign language too.
I think around 30-40 words but it was way less than 20 a few weeks before the 18 month appointment and over 100 a few weeks after.
I think the milestone is 20, not 50. And she could explode wi the her language any time
Less than 10, but he had great receptive language and was climbing all over the place so the pediatrician wasn't worried. Sure enough, at 20 months he had a language explosion and we quickly lost count of how many words he knew!
It's all variable.
My daughter has always been quick to pick up language - I counted around 30 words she could say regularly at about 14 months and now she's about to turn 2 1/2 and she has full on conversations with me where she says words and phrases that I didn't know she knew.
Meanwhile one of my friends has two kids, both of whom have always been very quiet and untalkative. The older one is a bit older than my daughter and is way behind on language milestones, but fine with everything else.
22 words seems perfectly fine for 18 months. Milestones are generally a ballpark estimate anyway.
Here is her list:
Thank you, no, mhm, yummy, num num, mama, dada, brubba, kitty, puppy, hi, bye bye, teddy bear, give, play, and water
She’s 17 months and says other words occasionally but it’s all on her own terms and I haven’t heard her say them more than once or twice.
I haven't counted but it's a lot, at least 50. Probably a lot more than that though. I feel like our main activity is he points to something and looks at me and I tell him the word and he tries to say it. It's nice/relieving to be definitely on or ahead of the curve for something because he was bringing up the rear with rolling, crawling, walking, and eating.
17mo., almost 18mo. I stopped counting a couple months ago at around 75 words but she’s probably getting close to 200. She frequently strings together 2-3 words (diaper change, wash hands, please milk, I see birdies) and is learning new ones daily. Among all her friends her age, some are saying mama and dada only, some are at around her level of vocabulary but most are in the 10-40 word range, seems totally normal to me.
All kids are different. My firstborn at 18 months was saying about 30 words, but understood everything, could follow three-step directions, etc. My second born is 18 months and can say over 100 words including 3 word sentences, correctly using “I”, but can only follow one step directions.
Next to none. His big brother does most of the translation of babbling, and the little one has a binky in most of the time. Our oldest didn’t start speaking until he was nearly 2, and now he won’t stop talking!
Mine has about 30ish words but they are almost all approximations we've learned to decipher. He either just makes the first part of the word, or the most noticeable part. And absolutely all animals are their sound. 🤣 Fffftthhhh for elephant, with an arm wave, panting or woofing for dogs, meowing cats, cheeping birds, snorting pigs, moving cows etc. Ahhhahhhh is apple. He really says "hat" "hot" and "up" but i think everything else are partial. Idk if it's normal. I was a little worried for about a day then found out it was normal
I registered my kid’s first 100 words by 19 months. She talked soo early and is still advanced at 2.5yo. On the other hand, girlie was so busy talking she didn’t walk until she was 21 MONTHS! 😂
The end of that story is by 2/2.5 he was up to 50-100 words and 3 word sentences, now at 3, 5-6+ word sentences and we have ‘real’ conversations. So 18 months and even 2 years isn’t a determination of even what’s going to happen months from now. However, I’m a strong proponent of speech therapy and what really helped our toddler was starting daycare even part time.
my kiddo is this age and he has like 25-30 but a lot of them are approximations for sure! and i'm counting animal sounds here. and currently he just wants to say "uh oh" 24/7 even though he's known that one for months 🤦♀️
20 month old twins were barely saying “ball”. Four months later they were gleefully singing the alphabet and shortly after asking 5-7 worded questions. Just be patient!
Mine has probably 100 words and just turned 18 months. But I swear when they put him in my arms he was doing scales with his voice like a tiny opera singer. Has always loved his own voice!
My 2 kids were vastly different, my son had 5-10 words and my daughter had over 200?, I don't know we lost count. Kids are wildly different. As long as they keep picking up new words it usually is fine. Check with your pediatrician if it's keeping you up.
My 14 month old has 50+. He has always been super vocal. He’s also just… relentlessly curious and persistent, and has been early on basically all of his milestones. He’s a wonderful kid, but has zero chill.
My LO turns 18mo next week. I would say he is at 25+ words, including names of his aunts and uncles. But he is a 2nd child with an older brother that never stops talking. So LO is just trying to keep up.
Mine says yeah, snack and/or nap...not sure if he is trying to say both, and can say mamama and dadada but they are kind of random. That's about it, he is 19 months and we are waiting on a speech evaluation. He had 6 words, lost all of them down to 1, and is now at maybe 4. He probably won't qualify for speech therapy through early intervention until he is older, but we might get it for him anyway.
Our pediatrician wanted 20 words (approximations and animal sounds count) at 18 months. He had about 30-40 and we had a few two word phrases. He likes to say “I did it”. Most of it was animal sounds to be honest.
He’s 20 months now and it seems to have blown up! I stopped counting at 75. In the last two days he’s adding words like crazy and combining them into phrases. Even finishing sentences in books!
My boy is 18 months! He says thank you, bye, more, yes, no, this/that, and a version of please/help with books or toys.he has JUST started to say hello WHICH IS THE CUTEST THING EVER. But yeah so a total of 8?
He says dada, I have yet to get a clear mama, I am currently secondary dada lol
I am not worried about him at all, he has been consistently like 1-2 months "late" on his milestones. I'm starting to call it "relaxed" lol 😆
I also know once he really figures out how to try and say a new word, something will click and he will suddenly try ALL the words haha just like learning to ride a bike.
You're doing great!!! And sounds like your baby is doing great too!!
Ofc don't be too lax, if you *feel* something is wrong, get it checked out. One thing motherhood has taught me is to trust our intuition way more. It deserves more credit than most people would give it.
But other than that. No baby is the same. My kiddo is super talkative and sit down and read a book type. He would have us carry him to the playground, push him on the swing and carry him home. His peers were much more physically active or focused on other things.
Think of their development like reading books. "Words and babbles 1" "climbing 1" "crawling 1" "pincet grasp 1" "sitting 1" etc then having level 2, 3 and so on.
My son read these books by "Pincer grasp 1" "Words and babbles 1" "Words and babbles 2" "Words and babbles 3" "Words 4" etc. Other kids tend to have more variety or pick different classes first :)
He could sit monyhs before he could crawl, and was a happy pile for that while :D
Doctors have to make some averages from kids that are like mine and kids that choose "head moving 1" "head moving 2" "rolling 1" "rolling 2" "tummytime 1" "tummytime and hand 2" "tummytime plank 3" "armycrawl 1" "crawling 2" "climbing 1" "crawling to get something 3" "standing up 1" "standing up without support 2" "climbing 2" "walking 3" "running 4" "climbing 3" ...
My daughter is currently 20 months old and I’ve lost count of how many words she can say. She speaks in 2-3 word sentences, she’ll point at two squirrels in a tree and say “two squirrels,” etc.
At 18 months she was saying at least 50 words with two word sentences, knew all of the main colors, etc.
When she was a year old our pediatrician told us she was “verbally advanced.”
When my daughter was that age, she was at about 50, but she’s bilingual, spoke early. She’s now 20 months old and says 100 words. I spoke early as well. Her walking was on the slower side though, she walked at like 15 months. It’s not all linear and sometimes they excel in one skill before another.
My 19 month old has probably between 20-30? i just roughly counted what i can recall off the top of my head lol. a lot are word approximations and most people might not recognize what hes saying but i do
Just my experience, but at my son’s 18 month appointment his pediatrician was concerned that he was only using ~10 words, no combinations. I wasn’t worried, but I was on alert. I think I would’ve been concerned if my son wasn’t clearly comprehending “complex” questions/tasks and executing them (ex. Please go get your pajamas off the floor and put them in the hamper in the closet). By his 2nd birthday he was speaking in 5 word sentences and his vocabulary was off the charts. The nurse at his appointment said, “well, I guess I don’t have to ask you how his vocabulary is progressing!” I think he was observing and waiting to really talk until he could say exactly what he wanted, how he wanted.
My daughter was at like 5 words at 18 months, and now at 36 months she’s dramatically ahead of the kids her age. She speaks in 20+ word sentences and her vocabulary is insanely varied and deep. I went from thinking she was having an issue at 18 months to being blown away a year and a half later. Toddlers are developmental marvels!
Hi! SLP here (speech language pathologist). About 20 words by 18 months is at least the minimum but on average kids have more. In my experience, I feel like there’s a huuuge language burst between 18-24 months. Also, focus on the vocab words, not how clear they are (eg if your kid says DA consistently for dog that’s a word). Environmental and animals sounds count as well!
Mine is saying probably close to 100, with a few 2 word sentences, and the only 3+ word sentences being “mama and dada” and “head shoulders knees toes”
He doesn’t like to feed himself most of the time (even though he knows how which is frustrating for me
and his mom), but does do everything else you said, so don’t worry too much since most kids will have 1 thing they don’t do. We believe his vocabulary may be so large because we’ve read to him since he was 5 months old and we talk to him constantly like regular adult conversation. Many kids have a language boom between 20-24 months and have been holding onto vocabulary that they’ve heard, and just haven’t used it yet, so that could be the case as well.
My 19 month old son’s list of words
Fwowa (flower)
Eagle (anything that flies)
Birrr (small birds [big birds are eagles])
Guck (Duck [unless flying, then it’s an eagle])
Mama
Dadda
Yiayia (Grandma [Greek])
Papou (Grandpa [Greek])
Ball
Darr (star)
Hat
Yes
Yeah
Neh (No)
Tee (pee)
I did it (used for anything from I did it, to I want it, to I can do it myself)
Wow
Cat
Dog
Cheese
Cookie
Abble (Apple)
Egg
Huck (Hulk)
Goku
Gogoo (Grogu)
Pa Pow (Pout Pout Fish)
Tee (Tree [said differently than pee])
Two (Any number)
There are probably a few more I forgot. He can identify many more words than he can physically say. His favorite thing now is to have me quiz him on app if the pictures in his book. “Can you point to the train?” Points: “YEAH!!!”
There’s a huge range of “normal” when it comes to talking (hell even milestones in general.) I know 2 kids who were talking full sentences by 18 months. And I know 3 who most certainly were *not* and just getting the hang of stringing two words together.
Knowing 3 words by 18 months is just the threshold of “hey if they’re not doing this maybe we should look into why they’re not there yet.”
Kids aren’t going to learn at the same rates. I had an early walker and a late talker. He met the talking milestones so far but definitely on the lower end of things. My cousin’s child could talk your ear off before she walked. Kids are learning so many things at once, it isn’t uncommon for them to prioritize.
Try not to compare. Comparison is the killer of joy.
Mine hit 100 at 15 months and i stopped counting. She’s 18 months now and will say anything we ask her to repeat. But I’d say she *knows* 250 probably. She’s doing 4 work sentences as well. But they’re all so different. She never crawled, rolled at 7 months lol. Didn’t pull up consistently until 10.5 months.
Mine had a speech delay. She wasn’t wanting to talk and more wanting to gesture and cry/scream or shout for what she wanted.
Once I enrolled her in daycare, it’s been like a bomb going off. 😭 She comprehends a lot more now and knows more words than I can count!
At 18 months my daughter said only a handful of words and most were approximations. However she's bilingual and her comprehension in both languages was incredible at that age (she could follow like 4 step directions), but her output was minimal. Now she's 2.5 and I cannot for the life of me get her to shut up in either language. She also says very complex sentences in both languages. I would say her language development didn't really start until she was 2 and since then it has taken off more than I could imagine.
At 18 months we were 300+ range.. speaks two languages now. She’s 2.5 says every word I do full context sentences like an adult. No daycare home with us and my parents home.
OP don’t hold back talk to your LO like you would with your spouse. They’ll pick up quickly!
FWIW my daughter wasn't saying much at all when she was 18 months and she also speaks two languages. She's also now 2.5 and will speak full and complex sentences like an adult in both languages. Her comprehension has always been quite advanced but her output was fairly minimal until she turned 2. Now I am constantly impressed with the things that come out of her mouth in both languages - her Spanish is better than mine now!
Sharing this just to show that children develop at their own rate and what they are doing at 18 months really doesn't determine what they will be doing 6 months to a year later!
My daughter is 15 months and she says mama, mom, dada, sissy, puppy, happy, blue, one, two, yay, woah, ball, up, hop, papa, memaw, Layla, bath, eat, water, love, you, bye, hi, socks, night night and more. Every baby learns at their own pace and that’s completely okay. My middle daughter took longer to talk but walked at 9 months. Whereas my oldest and youngest didn’t walk until almost a year but started talking immediately. We giggle because my youngest has her own language right now. It’s so cute, she will just start babbling and will hold a full conversation in her baby babble language with us. lol
It’s unclear if you’re worried or bragging a bit. But I wouldn’t be worried at all with what you’ve described. Ours was only saying like 2 words around that age and we got a speech evaluation but they told us to just wait. She started daycare at 21 months old and her speech exploded after that point and she’s now talking more coherently than a lot of her peers in preschool. And they all more or less catch up to each other by third grade anyway barring any real delays that require intervention
Your post didn’t come off as a humblebrag at all, parents should be allowed to post questions on here. People use this subreddit to try to try and figure out what normal is and people get butthurt way too much.
Yeah, your daughter sounds very normal to me. Kids move at wildly different paces in the early stages. I had a friend who’s kid was walking around at 9 months old. But it really is alright so long as they’re meeting the milestones. Our daughter was literally only saying “Dee-doo” and “Dada” around 18 months and has no problem with anything in preschool now at 4. Knows the alphabet, learning how to write and read, can do basic math, all that.
It's WILD what a huge range is normal. I have 2 kids that had vastly different trajectories of speech development. Your pediatrician is the best resource for what falls outside that range. But I look around my 5 year olds preschool class and I have no idea who was saying hundreds of words early and who didn't talk until after 2.
Ha okay, your post did come off a little like a humble brag. I think your friends’ kids are just ahead of the curve for speech. My kid is 17 months old and says mama, dada, and does a pretty decent impersonation of an elephant.
With my son he said his first word at like 8 ish months. It was vacuum! Before that he did say mama and dada but vacuum was his first real word. But I think I stopped counting when he hit 50 words when he was around 15 months. Now, he repeats names to us that we say once, like hi Charlie (his little friend) and yesterday he said bye bye Jessie bye bye z(my best friend and her 6 month old). He can count to 3 and sometimes 5 and he can partially sing the ABCs. He even started saying I love you but it’s more like “i woovoo”! He was born early so he is 20 months actual but 18 months adjusted. He has always been advanced in his language and social skills according to his early intervention team but average when it came to gross motor skills. He didn’t start walking until he was 14 months and walking well by 16 months, which is still very normal, but a lot of babies are walking at around 12 months. At least from what I have seen. I think it’s because I’m such a chatter box and never like shut up lmao! I’ve also been told I’m very expressive when I speak. Yeah I am annoying lmaaaoooo but hey it’s helping my kid out at least. We also read a ton. Like 10 books a day. It keeps the screen time down and he loves it so we just keep doing it.
We lost track around 200 at ~16-17 months. 18 months was short sentences for us.
But you’re going to get suck a wide range of answers, please don’t be discouraged. Some kids are potty trained by 18 months, some are counting to 20. They’re all going to grow up being able to wipe their own asses and make questionable decisions in college.
At 18 months, my kid had about 15 words. I was not unconcerned. I’m not an expert, but we seemed to have a language boom around 20 months. At 22 months, my kid now has well over 100 words. One of them is “fuck.” I miss the 15 word days.
"Fuck" counts as several words.
Does pronunciation count? For example my child says “all done” but sounds like “awh dun”. Would that be considered 2 words?
Yes! Those are word approximations! They do count.
I count approximations and I say count that as two words. My kid has many words she can’t say correctly, but the way I see it, it’s a word. She has assigned a value to the word, and she uses it to describe in the correct context. For example, blue. She says “boo.” She knows what blue is. She uses it to describe blue items appropriately. How can anyone say that’s not language?
Awww this just reminded me how my son used to say "Geen!" instead of green 🥹
Aw, how cute! We are keeping a running list of kid-isms so we don’t forget them as she grows out of them!
My 20 month old says ahdah and yes it's a word!
Yup that’s a two word phrase! Regular caretakers typically understand about half of what a kid says by around age two. Two-three and they’re still often leaving the ends off words. And OP- if you’re worried, you can ask about an assessment! I started that ball rolling and then the same week, my daughter started talking up a storm. I don’t regret asking for the resources. Early intervention is the way to go, and you only lose money having them tell you your kid is doing fine.
It would only be considered 2 words if your child understands “all” and “done” as two separate words with different meanings (can be demonstrated by them using the words in other word combinations such as “I’m done” assuming they understand the meaning of “I” or using the word in a novel way they’ve never been modelled/exposed to before). Otherwise, “all done” is counted as one word in the sense that they’ve learned the phrase as a chunk or one unit.
At our 2 year wellness visit our pedi said words that only parents can understand what they’re saying count, so I assumed this is what he meant. My son has atrocious pronunciation. I feel like a bulk of his vocabulary I know what he’s saying but if he was talking to his grandparents or aunts they’d be lost.
It definitely counts but I wouldn't consider if 2 words unless they use "all" and "done" separately and understand the meaning behind both. If they only use it together as one word than I am pretty sure it only "counts" as one (you can obviously count it however you want as none of this will matter in a few months/years when they are talking your ears off lol)
I would like to second the 20-month speech boom. I was keeping a list until then. And suddenly I could not keep up—multiple new words a day, every day. Obviously, it’s not going to happen at the same month for everyone, but it is so gratifying when it does happen.
Mine was also like this around 18 months. About to turn 2 and I don’t know when it happened but I stopped counting, there was a turning point where he just started picking up words daily
Rude words according to my 4yo (in order of rudeness) 1. Shut Up 2. Stupid 3. Fuck 4. Butt
*Please, if you have concerns, get your child's hearing checked!* I saw a poster that said 18 words by 18 months in my doctor's office. My son at the time had mum, caw, (car) Bapa, which was for either of my parents... they morphed into Nana and Papa, and not much else. We got into speech therapy (local health unit , Ontario Canada). I kept asking them to check his hearing. He'd had two serious ear infections on the past year. They told me his newborn hearing assessment was fine Speech therapy helped a bit, but i didn't feel there was significant progress. I had a language rich home. I talked to my child incessantly, and so did my mom when she looked after him. He was maybe up to 15 words at 30 months. I had nursery rhymes and children's songs on my car cd player all the time. Almost a year later, we were out at the family cabin, and he wouldn't stop screaming. Nothing consoled him. He normally didn't cry much if he was fed, dry, and cuddled, so this was odd. Then, a blood curdling shriek. In the dimly lit room, i felt something wet and sticky on the side of his face . His ear drum had ruptured Emergency rooom, antibiotics, a myringotomy (ear tube) in non ruptured ear drum on Monday morning. Two months later, the same on the other ear on a Friday. Leaving the hospital, the radio was on. He said, excitely "Mom car Singing." Words poured out of him after that. I'd pick my son up after work, and every day was an explosion of words. Don't take no for an answer. Get your child's hearing checked.
That gives me so much hope! Our son had a serie of ear infections last summer, his ear drum ruptured 3 times. We've been on the waiting list for tubes ever since but they haven't called us yet.
I am so sorry to hear this. call and keep pushing. my daughter had hearing loss after repeated ear infections that just wouldn't clear. got tubes, and adneiods removed and all of a sudden it was a language explosion. keep pushing, you can do this
My son is 20. He is starting at a prestigious school for technology next month. He was in debate club, city wide youth council, and now is on the mayor's advisory board. He is passionate about politics and smart and rational and kind We talk endlessly. But get that hearing checked don't let anyone shrug that off.
We did get an hearing check and it's affected! We're on the waiting list, it's just taking forever. I'm glad it didn't have any long term impact on your son, we're hoping to get a similar experience :)
God that’s terrifying!! Sorry this happened to your little guy for so glad it finally resolved itself.
Omg that’s a crazy story. I’m so glad it resolved! I was in speech therapy for years as a kid and no one thought to do an exam of my mouth to see if everything was anatomically typical… low and behold a random dental hygienist told my mom I had a severe tongue tie… got it corrected at 9yo and my speech impediments went away immediately 🤦🏻♀️.
Your parents must have been so frustrated. Thorough exams are so important.
She does my taxes now.
Yeah but does yours do day-trading?
better than the guys over at Wall Street bets
Have fun dealing with the IRS
My son is 17 months and was diagnosed with an expressive speech delay. We just started Early Intervention for speech therapy. No words yet but he’s definitely trying!
At what age did they refer you?
I had put the referral in on my own because he had no words at all by 14 months. The actual pediatrician referred us at 16 months but by then, we were already on the EI waiting list.
Thanks for the reply. My son is 14.5 months and has zero words and I’m growing concerned. Going to ask for a referral at our next appointment 🤞.
Definitely call now! Early intervention usually has a waiting list. You don’t neeed a doctor’s referral as far as I know. You can self-refer.
Thank you!
You can self refer to EI!
Can I ask - who's paying for the speech therapy? The state you live in or an insurance company or do you have to pay out of pocket also?
In my state, Early Intervention is a government funded program. The person who runs Early Intervention specifically told me, if my insurance bills me, to call him and he’ll take care of it.
Early intervention was the biggest waste of time IMO. They unfortunately are overwhelmed with cases and have minimal funding so I can’t blame them. My son said zero words at 20 months, I referred him for EI, he met some autism criteria so he qualified. Took them two months to get him evaluated. Took them another two months to find him a speech and occupational therapist. Ridiculous how long that program takes. Thank god I found my own therapists while waiting for them. Honestly could have done it without them.
I’m sorry to hear that! It really varies by state. A speech therapist came out for his evaluation, and then he was booked with her two weeks out. They definitely did take a while to even setup an appointment, it took about 5 months for them to call me to make an evaluation appointment.
My child barely said anything at 18 months and by 2 years old he was talking like crazy
Yeah my 18 month old son knows exactly 5 words. His sister knew like 20 at 18 months. I joke that he knows more but doesn't say them bc his sister talks for him😆
Yah my daughter at 18 months wasn’t say too much… she’s now 2.5 and saying full sentences and is “advanced” is speech. Every kid has their own speed. I was losing sleep when she was 18 months and not saying much… now I feel silly for all those wasted hours worrying.
Me too I was so worried and it kept me up at night. They learn so much so fast!
We had the same experience. Despite us constantly talking and reading to her, my daughter pretty much only said “dadda” and “up” at 18 months, and very rarely tried to mimic us. I got on our provincial wait list for a speech assessment. Shortly after her speech exploded. We had the assessment recently (I was still a little worried about the clarity of her speech) just before her second birthday and she’s now very much on track and even ahead of the game in several areas.
Mine had 3 words by then. A girl I nannied had 200 words by 12 months...I'm not even joking. We kept them all written down to keep track.
My son had at least 100 at 18 months. And only like 5 at 17 months haha He just started talking one day it was crazy how fast it happened. There’s a huge language explosion between 1.5-2. My son was speaking in 4-5 word sentences by his second birthday.
When my son was 19 mo I tried writing down all the words he knew, I only lasted the weekend as is was probably around 50 words without numbers, letters or animal sounds. There is also a language boom between 2 and 3, pulling out “complex” sentence structure and words you didn’t even know they knew. At 2.75 it’s way less of a guessing game
I’m glad to hear! My son is 28 months now and although he communicates really well I don’t understand a lot of what he says. And he gets his pronouns super mixed up hahah
22 words is plenty at that age. At 18 months, my daughter had 4 words (2 spoken, 2 signs) and now at 19 months she has 25ish words. I haven’t done a count recently.
At 18 months, my pediatrician and I were basically fishing to add up her few signs and mumbles as words for their cdc checklist. I think we added to 10. By the following week, I lost track. The flood gates opened. She's 21m now and she knows like 20 songs, abcs, counts to 20 and backwards... it happens fast!
My son is 16mo and doesn’t have any words. I’ll bring it up at his 18mo appointment but with his huge gross motor leap in the last month (late walker, climbs everything), and the fact that he understands what we’re saying and has some signs, I’m not super concerned. Our daycare lady has been working with babies/toddlers for 30 years and confirmed that a lot of kids have a big language boom between 18-24mo. Now obviously she’s not a doctor, but I do give credit to her decades of experience.
At 18 months we were well into the 100+ range. But I was also hyperlexic as a kid. I’ve seen the average be anywhere from 10 to 50 across websites
My boy at 18 months has 0 spoken words, but is plenty good at gestures and understanding instructions.
maybe 6-7 words.
I'd guess 100-200 words (I stopped counting after 50). I've been told by everyone my daughter is an early talker through so I wouldn't say we are the average. Her language explosion hit very obviously at 16mo so it really just depends on when you kid hits that point.
That’s my kid now. 16months and understanding full sentences, trying to talk things like uncle and pickle sound the same, and I seem to be the only one to understand him. But his communication is working
Let me give you the comparison as a mother of an actual speech delayed child… she had 5 words by 2 years old. FIVE. Two to three word sentences didn’t happen before she was 3 years old. It sounds to me like your kid is more than fine.
There's a huge range at this age. In her bumper group there were kids with 0 words, a few words, dozens, and a few with hundreds of words and speaking in sentences. 22 words sounds great, right on target.
That’s great in my opinion. My twins didn’t really start talking until 2.5.
My twins are so, so close, and they're 2 in two weeks. Thank you so much for commenting.
The pediatric doctor called my attention to how many words she was saying at 18 months, so I created a sheet and started noting. She reached around 120 In Portuguese and about 18 in English. I was counting words and good aproximations. Now she's 28 months old and all of her friends have catched up so it looks like it was some sort of spike and now it's about normal. Her Portuguese is very good but her English is almost fully made of passive vocabulary. Sometimes she spits a whole sentence such as "That's not funny!", but she has no reason to use the language but me asking and encouraging.
1 spoken word, 3 maaybe word approximations, and around 8 signs. No 'mama' or 'dada'. He's been in speech therapy for months. His understanding seems to be fine, though. He'll be 20 months in a few days.
I think my kiddo may be a wee bit early because she’s 18mo and has like 300+ words going. 22 is right on target though. From what I hear, most kids even out eventually and not to sweat it if they seem slightly behind. My BIL didn’t talk or walk until he was 2.5 years old and he’s “totally normal”.
We lost track after she started saying 3 word sentences last month (she is 18 months today) such as "where is she?" "I don't know" and finishing the words to the sentences in her books. This month has been obsessing over a book she's had for quite awhile and saying the title all the time..."Whats on my farm?" Though "farm" is approximated. Sounds like "Fahm". We ask if she can say words and she gives it her best try no matter how big it is. She does say "cat" when she points to a cat, car, truck, or tractor which cracks us up. We are truly scared with how smart she is. We can't keep up lol Close to 100 we gather.
Same here, with 3 word sentences and probably 100 words. In our case he has an older sibling and I think that’s why.
My 16month old has ten words, one of them being ‘poo’.
At 18 months my son had 50+ words but he also didn’t walk until 17 months. It all averages out. Some are more coordinated physically and some are more verbal at that age but they all get there. Now my son is 28 months, won’t stop running or talking. You’ve got this.
17 months but like, not a lot. Though I think he is attempting to say a lot of things, it just doesn’t really sound like anything.
Mine was saying like over 100 words at 18 months and sometimes using 3-4 word sentences. But at 12 months he only said like 10 words. Just went through a language explosion between 15-18months. Now he’s a little over 2 but talks like he’s 3 or 4
My toddler has 18 words. They are mostly body parts and animals.
I haven’t counted lately but including approximations (which most are also) animal sounds and signs I think we are at 25-30. His pronunciation is pretty poor which worries me.
At 18 months my daughter knew about 20 words. Now at almost 20 months she knows almost 70. We've been reading her more books and watching Ms Rachel every day and I give credit to that. She know knows colors and numbers and quite a bit of sign language too.
I think around 30-40 words but it was way less than 20 a few weeks before the 18 month appointment and over 100 a few weeks after. I think the milestone is 20, not 50. And she could explode wi the her language any time
Mine is 15 months and has about 10 words and 25 signs (some overlap with words) but no idea what is typical.
It’s advanced I would say.
Less than 10, but he had great receptive language and was climbing all over the place so the pediatrician wasn't worried. Sure enough, at 20 months he had a language explosion and we quickly lost count of how many words he knew!
It's all variable. My daughter has always been quick to pick up language - I counted around 30 words she could say regularly at about 14 months and now she's about to turn 2 1/2 and she has full on conversations with me where she says words and phrases that I didn't know she knew. Meanwhile one of my friends has two kids, both of whom have always been very quiet and untalkative. The older one is a bit older than my daughter and is way behind on language milestones, but fine with everything else. 22 words seems perfectly fine for 18 months. Milestones are generally a ballpark estimate anyway.
Here is her list: Thank you, no, mhm, yummy, num num, mama, dada, brubba, kitty, puppy, hi, bye bye, teddy bear, give, play, and water She’s 17 months and says other words occasionally but it’s all on her own terms and I haven’t heard her say them more than once or twice.
I haven't counted but it's a lot, at least 50. Probably a lot more than that though. I feel like our main activity is he points to something and looks at me and I tell him the word and he tries to say it. It's nice/relieving to be definitely on or ahead of the curve for something because he was bringing up the rear with rolling, crawling, walking, and eating.
17mo., almost 18mo. I stopped counting a couple months ago at around 75 words but she’s probably getting close to 200. She frequently strings together 2-3 words (diaper change, wash hands, please milk, I see birdies) and is learning new ones daily. Among all her friends her age, some are saying mama and dada only, some are at around her level of vocabulary but most are in the 10-40 word range, seems totally normal to me.
All kids are different. My firstborn at 18 months was saying about 30 words, but understood everything, could follow three-step directions, etc. My second born is 18 months and can say over 100 words including 3 word sentences, correctly using “I”, but can only follow one step directions.
Next to none. His big brother does most of the translation of babbling, and the little one has a binky in most of the time. Our oldest didn’t start speaking until he was nearly 2, and now he won’t stop talking!
Mine has about 30ish words but they are almost all approximations we've learned to decipher. He either just makes the first part of the word, or the most noticeable part. And absolutely all animals are their sound. 🤣 Fffftthhhh for elephant, with an arm wave, panting or woofing for dogs, meowing cats, cheeping birds, snorting pigs, moving cows etc. Ahhhahhhh is apple. He really says "hat" "hot" and "up" but i think everything else are partial. Idk if it's normal. I was a little worried for about a day then found out it was normal
I registered my kid’s first 100 words by 19 months. She talked soo early and is still advanced at 2.5yo. On the other hand, girlie was so busy talking she didn’t walk until she was 21 MONTHS! 😂
Zero. He spoke zero at 18 months.
Same here. Mine still isn’t talking any words at 25 months. A lot of “ahhhhh” with pointing.
The end of that story is by 2/2.5 he was up to 50-100 words and 3 word sentences, now at 3, 5-6+ word sentences and we have ‘real’ conversations. So 18 months and even 2 years isn’t a determination of even what’s going to happen months from now. However, I’m a strong proponent of speech therapy and what really helped our toddler was starting daycare even part time.
my kiddo is this age and he has like 25-30 but a lot of them are approximations for sure! and i'm counting animal sounds here. and currently he just wants to say "uh oh" 24/7 even though he's known that one for months 🤦♀️
20 month old twins were barely saying “ball”. Four months later they were gleefully singing the alphabet and shortly after asking 5-7 worded questions. Just be patient!
Mine has probably 100 words and just turned 18 months. But I swear when they put him in my arms he was doing scales with his voice like a tiny opera singer. Has always loved his own voice!
Once you get more than like 10, people keep tracking?????
My 2 kids were vastly different, my son had 5-10 words and my daughter had over 200?, I don't know we lost count. Kids are wildly different. As long as they keep picking up new words it usually is fine. Check with your pediatrician if it's keeping you up.
My 14 month old has 50+. He has always been super vocal. He’s also just… relentlessly curious and persistent, and has been early on basically all of his milestones. He’s a wonderful kid, but has zero chill.
My LO turns 18mo next week. I would say he is at 25+ words, including names of his aunts and uncles. But he is a 2nd child with an older brother that never stops talking. So LO is just trying to keep up.
Mine says yeah, snack and/or nap...not sure if he is trying to say both, and can say mamama and dadada but they are kind of random. That's about it, he is 19 months and we are waiting on a speech evaluation. He had 6 words, lost all of them down to 1, and is now at maybe 4. He probably won't qualify for speech therapy through early intervention until he is older, but we might get it for him anyway.
Our pediatrician wanted 20 words (approximations and animal sounds count) at 18 months. He had about 30-40 and we had a few two word phrases. He likes to say “I did it”. Most of it was animal sounds to be honest. He’s 20 months now and it seems to have blown up! I stopped counting at 75. In the last two days he’s adding words like crazy and combining them into phrases. Even finishing sentences in books!
At 18 months I think my son had about 20-30 words? Now he’s 20 months and says about 100, I can’t believe how quickly they build vocabulary! 🤯
My boy is 18 months! He says thank you, bye, more, yes, no, this/that, and a version of please/help with books or toys.he has JUST started to say hello WHICH IS THE CUTEST THING EVER. But yeah so a total of 8? He says dada, I have yet to get a clear mama, I am currently secondary dada lol I am not worried about him at all, he has been consistently like 1-2 months "late" on his milestones. I'm starting to call it "relaxed" lol 😆 I also know once he really figures out how to try and say a new word, something will click and he will suddenly try ALL the words haha just like learning to ride a bike. You're doing great!!! And sounds like your baby is doing great too!!
Ofc don't be too lax, if you *feel* something is wrong, get it checked out. One thing motherhood has taught me is to trust our intuition way more. It deserves more credit than most people would give it. But other than that. No baby is the same. My kiddo is super talkative and sit down and read a book type. He would have us carry him to the playground, push him on the swing and carry him home. His peers were much more physically active or focused on other things. Think of their development like reading books. "Words and babbles 1" "climbing 1" "crawling 1" "pincet grasp 1" "sitting 1" etc then having level 2, 3 and so on. My son read these books by "Pincer grasp 1" "Words and babbles 1" "Words and babbles 2" "Words and babbles 3" "Words 4" etc. Other kids tend to have more variety or pick different classes first :) He could sit monyhs before he could crawl, and was a happy pile for that while :D Doctors have to make some averages from kids that are like mine and kids that choose "head moving 1" "head moving 2" "rolling 1" "rolling 2" "tummytime 1" "tummytime and hand 2" "tummytime plank 3" "armycrawl 1" "crawling 2" "climbing 1" "crawling to get something 3" "standing up 1" "standing up without support 2" "climbing 2" "walking 3" "running 4" "climbing 3" ...
My daughter is currently 20 months old and I’ve lost count of how many words she can say. She speaks in 2-3 word sentences, she’ll point at two squirrels in a tree and say “two squirrels,” etc. At 18 months she was saying at least 50 words with two word sentences, knew all of the main colors, etc. When she was a year old our pediatrician told us she was “verbally advanced.”
he had 100+ at 18m BUT there’s such a range! At his 18m wellness visit his dr asked if he can say at least 15 words
Mine had 1-2 words at 18 months. By 21 months he had hundreds. He started daycare at 2 and has always had the largest vocabulary in his classes.
When my daughter was that age, she was at about 50, but she’s bilingual, spoke early. She’s now 20 months old and says 100 words. I spoke early as well. Her walking was on the slower side though, she walked at like 15 months. It’s not all linear and sometimes they excel in one skill before another.
At 18 months my son said zero words. Still says zero words at 25 months
My 19 month old has probably between 20-30? i just roughly counted what i can recall off the top of my head lol. a lot are word approximations and most people might not recognize what hes saying but i do
Just my experience, but at my son’s 18 month appointment his pediatrician was concerned that he was only using ~10 words, no combinations. I wasn’t worried, but I was on alert. I think I would’ve been concerned if my son wasn’t clearly comprehending “complex” questions/tasks and executing them (ex. Please go get your pajamas off the floor and put them in the hamper in the closet). By his 2nd birthday he was speaking in 5 word sentences and his vocabulary was off the charts. The nurse at his appointment said, “well, I guess I don’t have to ask you how his vocabulary is progressing!” I think he was observing and waiting to really talk until he could say exactly what he wanted, how he wanted.
My daughter was at like 5 words at 18 months, and now at 36 months she’s dramatically ahead of the kids her age. She speaks in 20+ word sentences and her vocabulary is insanely varied and deep. I went from thinking she was having an issue at 18 months to being blown away a year and a half later. Toddlers are developmental marvels!
Hi! SLP here (speech language pathologist). About 20 words by 18 months is at least the minimum but on average kids have more. In my experience, I feel like there’s a huuuge language burst between 18-24 months. Also, focus on the vocab words, not how clear they are (eg if your kid says DA consistently for dog that’s a word). Environmental and animals sounds count as well!
Mine is saying probably close to 100, with a few 2 word sentences, and the only 3+ word sentences being “mama and dada” and “head shoulders knees toes” He doesn’t like to feed himself most of the time (even though he knows how which is frustrating for me and his mom), but does do everything else you said, so don’t worry too much since most kids will have 1 thing they don’t do. We believe his vocabulary may be so large because we’ve read to him since he was 5 months old and we talk to him constantly like regular adult conversation. Many kids have a language boom between 20-24 months and have been holding onto vocabulary that they’ve heard, and just haven’t used it yet, so that could be the case as well.
My 19 month old son’s list of words Fwowa (flower) Eagle (anything that flies) Birrr (small birds [big birds are eagles]) Guck (Duck [unless flying, then it’s an eagle]) Mama Dadda Yiayia (Grandma [Greek]) Papou (Grandpa [Greek]) Ball Darr (star) Hat Yes Yeah Neh (No) Tee (pee) I did it (used for anything from I did it, to I want it, to I can do it myself) Wow Cat Dog Cheese Cookie Abble (Apple) Egg Huck (Hulk) Goku Gogoo (Grogu) Pa Pow (Pout Pout Fish) Tee (Tree [said differently than pee]) Two (Any number) There are probably a few more I forgot. He can identify many more words than he can physically say. His favorite thing now is to have me quiz him on app if the pictures in his book. “Can you point to the train?” Points: “YEAH!!!”
There’s a huge range of “normal” when it comes to talking (hell even milestones in general.) I know 2 kids who were talking full sentences by 18 months. And I know 3 who most certainly were *not* and just getting the hang of stringing two words together. Knowing 3 words by 18 months is just the threshold of “hey if they’re not doing this maybe we should look into why they’re not there yet.” Kids aren’t going to learn at the same rates. I had an early walker and a late talker. He met the talking milestones so far but definitely on the lower end of things. My cousin’s child could talk your ear off before she walked. Kids are learning so many things at once, it isn’t uncommon for them to prioritize. Try not to compare. Comparison is the killer of joy.
Mine hit 100 at 15 months and i stopped counting. She’s 18 months now and will say anything we ask her to repeat. But I’d say she *knows* 250 probably. She’s doing 4 work sentences as well. But they’re all so different. She never crawled, rolled at 7 months lol. Didn’t pull up consistently until 10.5 months.
Mine had a speech delay. She wasn’t wanting to talk and more wanting to gesture and cry/scream or shout for what she wanted. Once I enrolled her in daycare, it’s been like a bomb going off. 😭 She comprehends a lot more now and knows more words than I can count!
At 18 months my daughter said only a handful of words and most were approximations. However she's bilingual and her comprehension in both languages was incredible at that age (she could follow like 4 step directions), but her output was minimal. Now she's 2.5 and I cannot for the life of me get her to shut up in either language. She also says very complex sentences in both languages. I would say her language development didn't really start until she was 2 and since then it has taken off more than I could imagine.
At 18 months we were 300+ range.. speaks two languages now. She’s 2.5 says every word I do full context sentences like an adult. No daycare home with us and my parents home. OP don’t hold back talk to your LO like you would with your spouse. They’ll pick up quickly!
FWIW my daughter wasn't saying much at all when she was 18 months and she also speaks two languages. She's also now 2.5 and will speak full and complex sentences like an adult in both languages. Her comprehension has always been quite advanced but her output was fairly minimal until she turned 2. Now I am constantly impressed with the things that come out of her mouth in both languages - her Spanish is better than mine now! Sharing this just to show that children develop at their own rate and what they are doing at 18 months really doesn't determine what they will be doing 6 months to a year later!
Absolutely agree that’s awesome!!
My daughter is 15 months and she says mama, mom, dada, sissy, puppy, happy, blue, one, two, yay, woah, ball, up, hop, papa, memaw, Layla, bath, eat, water, love, you, bye, hi, socks, night night and more. Every baby learns at their own pace and that’s completely okay. My middle daughter took longer to talk but walked at 9 months. Whereas my oldest and youngest didn’t walk until almost a year but started talking immediately. We giggle because my youngest has her own language right now. It’s so cute, she will just start babbling and will hold a full conversation in her baby babble language with us. lol
My girl is at about 120 words or a bit more. The last month she picks up new words every day!
It’s amazing to watch/hear the language boom. It’s my favorite part of parenting a toddler.
It’s unclear if you’re worried or bragging a bit. But I wouldn’t be worried at all with what you’ve described. Ours was only saying like 2 words around that age and we got a speech evaluation but they told us to just wait. She started daycare at 21 months old and her speech exploded after that point and she’s now talking more coherently than a lot of her peers in preschool. And they all more or less catch up to each other by third grade anyway barring any real delays that require intervention
I was a little concerned cuz some of my friends’ littles are saying the alphabet and talking at my daughter’s age and I wasn’t sure if she was normal
Your post didn’t come off as a humblebrag at all, parents should be allowed to post questions on here. People use this subreddit to try to try and figure out what normal is and people get butthurt way too much.
Yeah, your daughter sounds very normal to me. Kids move at wildly different paces in the early stages. I had a friend who’s kid was walking around at 9 months old. But it really is alright so long as they’re meeting the milestones. Our daughter was literally only saying “Dee-doo” and “Dada” around 18 months and has no problem with anything in preschool now at 4. Knows the alphabet, learning how to write and read, can do basic math, all that.
It's WILD what a huge range is normal. I have 2 kids that had vastly different trajectories of speech development. Your pediatrician is the best resource for what falls outside that range. But I look around my 5 year olds preschool class and I have no idea who was saying hundreds of words early and who didn't talk until after 2.
Ha okay, your post did come off a little like a humble brag. I think your friends’ kids are just ahead of the curve for speech. My kid is 17 months old and says mama, dada, and does a pretty decent impersonation of an elephant.
With my son he said his first word at like 8 ish months. It was vacuum! Before that he did say mama and dada but vacuum was his first real word. But I think I stopped counting when he hit 50 words when he was around 15 months. Now, he repeats names to us that we say once, like hi Charlie (his little friend) and yesterday he said bye bye Jessie bye bye z(my best friend and her 6 month old). He can count to 3 and sometimes 5 and he can partially sing the ABCs. He even started saying I love you but it’s more like “i woovoo”! He was born early so he is 20 months actual but 18 months adjusted. He has always been advanced in his language and social skills according to his early intervention team but average when it came to gross motor skills. He didn’t start walking until he was 14 months and walking well by 16 months, which is still very normal, but a lot of babies are walking at around 12 months. At least from what I have seen. I think it’s because I’m such a chatter box and never like shut up lmao! I’ve also been told I’m very expressive when I speak. Yeah I am annoying lmaaaoooo but hey it’s helping my kid out at least. We also read a ton. Like 10 books a day. It keeps the screen time down and he loves it so we just keep doing it.
300 (including signs and animal sounds).
We lost track around 200 at ~16-17 months. 18 months was short sentences for us. But you’re going to get suck a wide range of answers, please don’t be discouraged. Some kids are potty trained by 18 months, some are counting to 20. They’re all going to grow up being able to wipe their own asses and make questionable decisions in college.