How may words does your 18 month old have?

[sil]

My DS is 18 months old, and he only just recently started trying to use words. He can consistantly say:
Dada
Mama
KwaKwa (quack quack when he sees a duck)
Ba (bath)
Ki (kitty)

He also knows the signs for more and please. Do signs count as words?

There have been probably 10 other words he has said in his life time, but he will use them for a week and then literally never use them again even if prompted.

My DS1 was advanced in language (had 200+ words and did 2 word combos by 18 months), so I'm doing my best not to compare them but I wasn't sure if this few words and losing words was normal or not.

 

[loeylo]

As far as I'm aware, even if they use a word properly once then don't use it again it still counts as a word.

My daughter is 15 months and can say:

Mum/dad/papa
Oof oof for woof woof
"mwah" when she wants a kiss
"aye" for both "hi" and "bye"
"oes" while pointing at shoes (her current favourite)
"oose" for her juice (also uses the same for milk though)

That's about it. She doesn't sign but uses hand motions to signal her wants (like she does the twinkle twinkle hand motion for twinkle twinkle little star, she slaps her forehead for five little monkeys, and she rocks for row row row your boat) and she points at things she wants.

As you said yourself there is no need to compare kids, they are all different and develop in different ways. I always thought mines would be a more physical kid since she had great head control from birth and army crawled from when she was tiny, and was on the later side for social interactions like smiling. She was quite late to coo and babble too. I was an early talker but a really late walker (18m!) and I never crawled, whereas her dad didn't talk properly until he was 3 but was taking a few steps by 10m. I totally expected her to be like her dad, but now she is way more advanced with her communication than she is physically.

 

[KylasBaby]

Honestly, too many to count.

Mommy and mama
Her grandparents/great grandparents and her friends at daycare. And the dog
The names of many animals and their sounds they make (tho those aren't words)
Up, please, down, bath, bed, play, hungry, eat, the names of many foods, milk, water, sticker, splash, bubbles, all the Mickey Mouse characters, dance, sing, hi/bye, shoes, boots, snow, book, read, love you, doll, cooking, etc etc

She can do 2/3 and occasionally 4 word phrases. She is vey advanced language wise. She will be 18 months at the end of the month.

She was late to crawl but walked right at a year. She's been "talking" ever since she could make noise and has yet to slow down!

Kids all develop at different rates. I'm not sure how many worse they "should" have by 18 months. Is his doctor concerned? I hear a lot of late talkers having language explosions around 2 so he might just be saving it for later

 

[Rainbow82]

DS can say
Mummy and mama
Kitty
Doggy
Hi
Bye bye
Bella
Birdies
Gruffalo
Boots
Shoes
Cup of tea
Babba (baby)
Book
Balloon
Grrrrr (dinosaur?!)
Ball
Milk
No
Yes
Oh dear
Uh oh
Peppa
Pretty
Boo
Thankyou


Probably a few others that I can't think of. The only thing he can say even close to a sentence is there it is or here I am.

His understanding is good and I can give him instructions like going to pick out a particular colour of socks but his speech is average ish I think according to nursery. He's 19 months and I know at his nursery anything more than a couple of words is fine at 18 months, they look much more at how much they understand.

 

[misspriss]

19 months and too many to count.

ETA DS did not have that much vocabulary until closer to 2, maybe 22 months. He was a boy, and he was the first. Having an older sibling has helped DD.

 

[Kaylen]

At 18 months my daughter had over 30 works in her vocabulary, I stopped counting so they were more than that. She could also count to 10 and say the ABCs. I am very proud of her...
However at her doctors appointment they said around 10 is normal, maybe even fewer. Some kids just start talking later. My nephew was almost 3 when he started saying sentences.
Also keep in mind they learn really quickly after 18 months so your son will likely start saying more and more words.

 

[weedle]

My eldest didn't talk until 2 then in a few weeks was talking in full sentences and classed as advanced in speech. They just pick a time and explode with language. My 15 month old seems like he will hit that explosion sooner as he can already say quite a few words like kitty, dirty, juice, ta, woof woof, granda, mama, dada, roar, di-soar (dinosaur).

 

[JumpingIn]

My 19 month old son had a single word for AGES. It was 'yeah'. At the beginning of the 18th month he had around 3. I was worried and posted a thread on here

He now has 35! That's within the space of 3 weeks.

Sometimes there's almost nothing until the language explosion. No one can believe this is the same child! Today he said 'byebyemummy'! He also says 'no more' and names colours!

 

[SarahBear]

Leo is almost 22 months and your son sounds a lot like Leo at the same age. At this point, he still doesn't say a whole lot and several of his words sound identical. He has a small working vocabulary and a larger range of things that he has said but does not say regularly. He is decent at picking up signs though, so I sometimes push those to at least get him communicating clearly. It helps a lot too. For example, I was getting the kids breakfast and offered to get him some water. Instead of getting upset, he was able to sign "milk" and I got it for him after confirming with him that it was what he wanted. He knows several signs:

• water
• milk
• potty
• more
• cookie
• cracker
• nut (well, learning this one)
• lights on (another one he's working on learning)
• open
• food
• dog (or a version of it from "baby signs.")

I also showed him "fork" this morning and he can nod and shake his head to answer yes/no questions. He points a lot as well. He also uses the signs flexibly in order to communicate what he wants. For example, "cookie" doesn't necessarily mean "cookie." It can mean whatever tasty snack is around or just that he's hungry. He learned "more" in the context of food, but then applied it to when he wanted BOTH lights on in the living room instead of one. That's when I started teaching him the sign for "lights on." And "open" can mean anything from "please take these two legos apart" to "Please open this snack bag" to "open that book and read it to me!" Since he learns the signs easily, I want to start using more with him.

He has great receptive communication and besides having a limited vocabulary that he doesn't always use, he has very good expressive communication skills and he actively tries to communicate. Some kids are just slower to speak.

 

[george83]

My ds2 could only say about 5 words until he was nearly 3 so I honestly would try not to worry. At one stage ds3 who is 15 months younger had lots more words. Ds2 then suddenly just started talking and went straight into saying sentences. It's so difficult to not do it but I honestly wouldn't worry too much just yet if your two have very different speech patterns

 

[SarahBear]

I think when wondering if you should worry, you really need to look at overall language:

* Can he understand what others are saying?
* Can he make himself understood with non-verbal communication?
* Does he try to communicate?

 

[k4th]

I think when wondering if you should worry, you really need to look at overall language:

* Can he understand what others are saying?
* Can he make himself understood with non-verbal communication?
* Does he try to communicate?

This^^

Plus - what impact is their vocabulary having? Some kids are very laid back & get on with things at their own rate. Other kids become intensely frustrated or become aware of their difficulties so stop trying as hard. Their emotional wellbeing should also be considered �� (Not always easy to differentiate from general toddler frustrations...)

My ds has about 50 words at 17 months. We do signing with him because his speech is unclear and he gets very frustrated when he's not understood.

 

[george83]

I think when wondering if you should worry, you really need to look at overall language:

* Can he understand what others are saying?
* Can he make himself understood with non-verbal communication?
* Does he try to communicate?

Agree with this too, as I already said my ds couldn't say anywhere near the recommended amount of words for a very long time but was never referred to speech therapy as his conprehension was 'normal'. Also with regards to the non verbal communication my lo made up his own sign language which was completely adorable

 

[mazndave]

At 18 months my DS probably had a similar range of vocabulary, it didn't really seem to develop until he turned 2. DD1 is similar to your eldest, too many words to count and starting to form 2/3 word sentences at 18 months. By 2 she was able to put 6/7 words together and now we have proper little conversations.

They all learn at a different pace, there's definitely no cause for concern at his age.

 

[SarahBear]

My oldest was also verbally advanced. She didn't start pairing words together at 18 months, but by two, she could easily say long sentences. I remember counting an 11 word sentence somewhere around two or shortly thereafter. I actually just watched a video of my daughter at 14 months old and she actually reminded me a lot of my son now at nearly 22 months!

 

[adrie]

Valla has 10 words at 18mo. She had her first explosion between 20-21 months and had at least 50+ words in addition to those. My brother in law didn't speak until 3 and then began speaking in long sentences pretty much immediately.

 

[Boo44]

If it helps my oldest son had probably 3 words at 18 months, he was an excellent on verbal communicator but just didn't seem to convert it into words. I worried my socks off! I'd say he 'exploded' at around 2 years 3 months, and now at 4.5 he's very intelligent and a brilliant talker, reader, you name it. This is no brag, this is just pointing out that they all end up basically the same no matter what they're like at 1 or even 2 xx

 

[Zephram]

My DS2 is 17 months, he'll be 18 months next week. His talking is absolutely amazing! I have no idea how many words he has, it's really too many to count. He has also started putting words together, e.g. two days ago he said, "Mummy, look, broken", to get my attention about a toy he pulled apart. He also says stuff like, "Mummy, come here" and "come me", which is his version of "I'm coming" or "I want to go" and stuff like "my toy".

DS1 was also an early talker, so I'm not totally surprised as he also was putting words together at this age.

I have a niece who said basically nothing until she was 3, she's now 5 and talks your ear off. There's a really wide range of normal for talking.

 

[CaptainMummy]

My youngest was speaking as good as alot of 3yr olds by about 18 months. She is now 2yrs 2m and speaks just as well as most of the kids in her sisters 3-5 nursery room (bar her pronunciation of a few sounds isn't quite there 'v' and 'l') Like above, there is a huge range of normal when it comes to speaking, and it gets to a point where you can't tell who was an early speaker and who didn't speak until later.

 

[JumpingIn]

Interesting experience at a soft play centre today. My 19 month old was playing with a 20 month old. The 20 month old had WAY more speech. He was happily putting 3 or 4 words together like 'it go down there' and 'he gone there'...Then I noticed his motor skills. He couldn't climb the structures like Zach could and he was wobbly on his feet still! So there was one little boy sounding grown up but limited physically and one racing around heaving himself up all the slides and jumping in the balls but still babbling away...

It was lovely to see these two versions of 'normal' together, at play!