Talk, talk, talk

As a parent there always seems to something to worry about, I’ve been worrying for a while about J’s speech or lack of. Everyone keeps reassuring me that he will do it in his own time, and that some kids do talk later. That he is concentrating on other things. I could go with this when he was younger because he was definitely a baby that was more interested in getting mobile than anything else. He’s two next week though – don’t even let me get started on how scary that is. Anyway as I was saying, he’s two next week and he probably only has between 10 – 15 words. Even these he doesn’t always use. I hear all the time of children younger them him saying more words, it makes it hard not to worry.

I haven’t seen a Health visitor since he was 9 months old, other than the home visit I got from one when R was born. I took R to baby group yesterday and I got him weighed, it’s not normally the HV that does it unless you want to talk to her about something else to. I don’t have much time for HV’s generally, as they give such conflicting advice. However as I was there I thought I would mention J’s two years review. Apparently they are running four months behind, which is bloody ridiculous. How they can do a two year review four months late I will never know. Although since he had his nine month review at 10 months nothing surprises me. She asked if I had any worries and I brought up his lack of talking. Apparently at two they should be able to say around 50 words; and string simple sentences together. Such as ‘Daddy gone’ and other such things. I told her he never did that; so she began telling me how I should take him to groups. I do, we go to toddler group most weeks, he goes to soft play, and we see his little friend at least twice a week. How much more can I be expected to do? I read to him every night, we point to things and name them, encouraging him to try and say the words. He won’t though. He can point to his body parts, including random things like eyebrows. He can do lots of animal noises and point out all his animals. He actually surprised me this morning when he showed me an octopus and a turtle. I had no clue that he knew these.

He does all this, so I can’t understand why he doesn’t attempt to use any words. He has started saying juice now though when he wants a drink, before he used to just fetch us the juice and hand it to us. So I guess it is some progress.

Today he shocked us though when all of a sudden he said ‘Hello Daddy.’ It came from nowhere and he said it a few times. Made me so proud.

The HV has taken our details and she will try and get us seen a bit sooner, in the next month or so rather than waiting four months. So that they are able to assess him and see if he needs to have speech therapy. It’s hard not to feel like I have failed him in some way; if we’d done something different then maybe he’d be able to talk more. Perhaps it is our fault; maybe having a dummy has delayed him like this. I don’t know but I just hope we can start to make more progress soon.

Has anyone else been through this? Got any experience or tips for me?