Average # of words for 17mo?

[CookAMH]

I am just curious what is average. DS seems to be doing well with words that he says, probably around 25. It's really fun!

[tea_time]

I have no idea what an average is, but I looked it up and my DD said 58 words at 17 months. I actually kept track for the longest time b/c it was fun. I have to agree with you on that! It was exciting to see all the new things she was learning and saying.

[crunchy_mommy]

At 17mos DS had... hundreds of words & some simple sentences. But he had a few friends that only had 1-3 words. So I have no idea what the average is, apparently it can vary a ton!!! Either way, it's so fun to see them learning & expressing themselves!!

[Ambishop19]

My boy is 15.5 months old and his word count is still under 10. He's trying so hard though. I don't know what the average is, but I'm still proud of my boy for trying. We read a lot to him, so I'm sure he'll consistently add more.

[MamaChicken]

DD had around 50 and simple sentences. The twins had 3-4 words each at that point. I don't remember with DS1, but it was probably in the 30-40 range.

[pear-shaped]

My dd had about 150 at that age. She wasn't making sentences yet, but she did make phrases with adjectives and nouns.

[LadyCatherine185]

I think the average for that age is around 25.

Liam had 150-200 words/phrases, but has always been ahead verbally.

[mckittre]

I'm not sure what "average" is, but I think there's a pretty wide range of normal. My son had a fair number of words at that point (I think at 16 months he had around 100 words, but only 40 were spoken, and I stopped counting then). At 17 months he was still using about half sign language, and just starting to put together short sentences.

I've been most amazed by how fast language comes once it gets going. For my son, it was only 7 months between his first word "moon" and fairly long sentences like: "What that baby doing? Baby is bouncing." and "There is big dump truck. Have little dump truck in yurt." and his favorite: "Not want dry diaper! Just stay naked!" It's definitely fun, but there are downsides to the fact that he can express more opinions now.

[lookatreestar]

um ds def has less than 20, but we are bilingual so he understands and listens well (in spanish and english)

my dd was 100+ she is/was very verbal. no baby talk either, just came out with word after word.

[EdnaMarie]

DD1 had 50 words including some sounds that denoted things. But she had 50 in each language. They were very poorly pronounced. No sentences.

DD2 is 17.5 months and she says a lot of words, but they all sound the same. Fascinatingly, her intonation is spot on. She intones entire sentences without pronouncing more than two consonants. She sings the alphabet... without the letters. The words I can think of now are da-da (doggie=any animal), baby, mama, DAda (daddy), dat (that), de (there), [name of sister, pronounced with a syllable and about four consonants and two vowels missing], uh-uh (thank you), da (yes, can't tell if this is in Russian, which we speak at home sometimes, or instead of "yeah"), grunt for needing potty, papa (potty, pee, poop, can't tell if it's different words or all one word to her), baba (balloon), ba (bike, ball), muh (milk, as in cow's), nuh (nurse), deda (sister), bye, hi, vvvvv (tschuss, German for buy), vvvvv (cheese, as in for the camera).

And lots of other things but they all sound the same so it's hard to remember them.

[Peppermint Poppies]

DD is 17.5 months and only has 2 words - "dada" and "ta".
DS, on the other hand, had closer to 50 words at this age.

[Marissamom]

I made a list a few days ago, and had about 50, but I missed a few, and she's added a few more in the last few days. I think average is about 25, but it varies really widely at this age because they usually are adding new words really fast.

[catters]

I never wrote any of that down with DS, or DD, for that matter, but at two, DS seemed to have an amazing vocabulary and sentence use (at least I thought so). DD is 17 months as of today and she has, what seems to me, to be far less than DS did at that same age. She understands a lot though, so I'm not too concerned. If I had to come up with a count, I'd say she has 15 - 20 words. She has one sentence:

"Iwandis" (I want this) - points to my breasts. Yep. What else does she need to say, really?

[ellemenope]

I think the average at 18 months is 50 words.

At 17 months DD had maybe 50 words, but a lot of these were approximations, animal sounds, onomonopia, and some numbers and letters. I was not impressed lol.

By 18 months, she was using approximately 1000 words. I could not keep track, but when I counted all kitchen words and came up with 250 I figured we were well into the thousands. She could say and repeat anything, and somewhere in the middle of that 18th month she said her first sentence. It was overnight. By 19 months she was speaking in long sentences all the time. She is 2.25 now and her vocabulary is deep. She uses words like crotch, ointment, skeleton, permanent, magenta, and tepid.

True story.

[Peppermint Poppies]

Originally Posted by ellemenope

She is 2.25 now and her vocabulary is deep. She uses words like crotch, ointment, skeleton, permanent, magenta, and tepid.

True story.

Wow I'm impressed by my 3.5yo who uses words like unfortunately and similar. He was very verbal early on, but not as much as your DD. She must be an absolute joy to listen to

[ellemenope]

Originally Posted by Peppermint Poppies

She must be an absolute joy to listen to

Yes, she is. She brings us much joy. Thanks.

[blizzard_babe]

I have NO CLUE how many words DS had at any age. I am that bad mother who can't seem to manage to count or keep track of this stuff .

I do remember that DS was a vocab-builder rather than sentence-builder, though. He had a huuuuuuuuuge vocabulary before he started stringing together sentences. And he figured out the plural and possessive "-s" suffixes way before he combined words into phrases/sentences. Silly little dude .

[eclipse]

With my oldest two, I lost count by that point. They were speaking in complete, complex sentences. My youngest wasn't really talking at all. I sometimes got a "hi" or "bye" or "mama," but not frequently.

[sunnygir1]

Originally Posted by blizzard_babe

I have NO CLUE how many words DS had at any age. I am that bad mother who can't seem to manage to count or keep track of this stuff .

Me too! I don't know how anyone can remember this stuff unless they write it down -- and who has time for that!?

I did make a list, which is saved on my computer, when dd was 21 months (20 adjusted for prematurity). She had about 80 words at that age; some Spanish, some sign language, and mostly English.

[thehighernest]

I started a list after the fact about a month or two ago because I was really becoming concerned about DS's speech. I would say that between 11 and 17 months he had acquired 20 words or so, but would stop using them, or only say them once or twice and never again. Or mainly he would only repeat them, not use them for a purpose. It was pretty frustrating.

He's 18.5 months now, and I can really say that in the last two weeks alone, he's started to use a LOT more words. He's probably doubled what he had a month ago, and he uses words more consistently. He uses words now to let you know what he wants ("more," "all done," etc.). I've also noticed that he's picked up signs, which he never really did back in the day, though I introduced a few. I'm actually going to try to teach him more now because I see that he puts the action and the word together and actually uses the word more in conjunction.

He's even counting, lol! He used to say "two" all the time randomly, but the other day we asked him if he saw some bicycles (he's obsessed with them), and he counted them: "one," "two."

It's really interesting to see too how he's working on a particular sound. Many of his new words are all "s" or "sh" words, not perfect, but distinct enough that I can tell the difference between his saying "sheep," "ship," "sit," "shoe," etc.

Anyway, I'm partially gloating now. I apologize. It's just I can't believe how worried I was just a few weeks ago. So all of this kinda feels like a gift, you know?