Tell me about your 6-7 month old and babbling! (Can't believe I'm obsessing about this)

[Hannah32]

Ok, excuse a first timer here with a totally neurotic question. Does this following sound normal to you?

My son is almost 7 months. He says plenty of aaaahhh ahhh ahhh, shrieks, razzes constantly etc. I also hear occasional "bzikts" and other nonsensical consonant combinations. I've heard "da" and "ba" too, but no chains of vowels and consonants and he's not that verbal overall. He talks and interacts with us, but not all the time. Sometimes, he turns his head when I say his name, but not all the time, and I think it may just be the sound of my voice. When should babies recognize their names?

He's extremely ahead in terms of physical milestones. He could creep at 5.5 months and now he's doing proper crawling with the arm leg action. He pulls to standing with ease and can cruise slowly with caution. He's also recently learned how to get down again after pulling to standing. Is it common for babies who are ahead physically to be slower verbally? Maybe he's using up all his energy on physical tasks?

I think I'm talking to him enough, but how do you know? Sometimes, I do get tired. We try to read to him, but he's mostly interested in grabbing the book away and chewing on it. I can sometimes get some stories in while nursing to sleep, but he has to be really drowsy.

[Knitting Mama]

I think Cecilia was around 7-8 months when she started doing consistent chains of "mamamamamamamamama and "babababababababa" and "dadadadadadada." She was around 6 months when she recognized her name, though it still took a couple of callings for her to turn to it.

Now at 9 months she is saying "amama" and "dada" pretty comfortably for myself and my husband.

[jgirl3003]

This is exactly my daughter! So I hope it's normal. Or at least there are two of them!

[chattyprincess]

Your son sounds exactly like my first dd. She could crawl by 5.5 mths and was walking indepently at 8months. She did not babble/chatter much at all until she had really mastered walking, around 9mths or so. Then she really quickly developed tons of languge. He sounds normal to me...I think in my own opinion that some kids do it all together (physical/speaking) or they do it seperate and it just depends which kid you have lol.

[skyewriter]

hey, sounds normal to me! DS 2 was sooo advanced, beautiful communication, advanced speech... until DD came along!! then his old videos were like cave man talking! It was so weird and still is funny, because he did communicate, but what he said with two words and a gesture she said in a complete sentence! They are all going to do stuff at their own speed, your little one sounds just fine!

[LaydieBugs]

My mom was an early child language specialist and what I recall of her classes is that this is pretty normal.  Especially the chewing on books part! 

There is a class on ed2go, for parents, relating to child language development.  I think it helps parents answer these questions (I helped my mom write it 10 years ago, but she passed away and someone else took it over ... so I'm no longer affiliated in any way, and I can't any longer speak to the exact content ... but I've heard it's cool and fun and helpful).

[shanniesue2]

totally normal!  Relax and enjoy your sweet babe :)

On a funny note, DS was about 6 months old when he started stringing ba's, da's, and ma's together.  The only reason I remember it is that it was during that really nasty 2008 election season and he randomly strung together o-ba-ma one day!  Being the liberals we are, we were very proud.

[mckittre]

Mine had made maybe one or two sounds by that age that could be considered English syllables.  He's almost 2 now and talking in paragraphs.  Don't worry!

[snoopy5386]

Mine is 9 months and doesn't really babble yet, but is advanced physically too. We've gotten very few ba/da/ma sounds, but I'm not worried. DD1 didn't say much either and then started all of a sudden. Now she never shuts up!

[Hannah32]

Just a quick update:

Yay! We have ba-ba and ba-bo over here! I'll take it!