How many words for a 20 month old?

silverhalo

DS says about 30-40 words. Is this normal for this age. Some of them are very clear as to what he is saying and others not so much. This is counting animal sounds as words also. Also a lot of the words that he says sound the same. For example when he requests a spoon, that sounds the same as when he says Boom. Is this normal for his age?

kate081206

normal

jen_and_scott

Yep, 18 words at 18mo is considered normal, so it sounds good to me!

Brownie0516

My 20 month old only says mama and dada so I think you are doing fine with 50 words.

Kellina

DS is 17 mo and only has 7.

GRKaters

DS has had more words than we could count for a long time. He's not 2 yet and speaks in full sentences. What you listed above sounds pretty normal.

Jen&Len

Sounds like my DS!

wellfleet04

There is a huge variation of normal at that age.  Some kids have 20 words, and that's fine, and some kids talk in complete sentences, and that's also fine.  My DD was talking like an adult at 20 months.  Her BFF probably had 15 words.  They are both 3 years old now, and you'd never know who was the earlier talker.   They both speak perfectly.

ss+el

Sounds pretty good to me   DS has about 10 words that make complete sense and probably at least 20 more that sound a lot like each other but that I am starting to figure out from context. Most of them start with 'b' or 'm' so they sound like 'ba' or 'buh' and 'ma' or 'muh'.

macchiatto

Yep, normal. They're supposed to have about 50 words by age 2 so he's right on track!

ChubbyCheekiesMom

wellfleet04:

There is a huge variation of normal at that age.  Some kids have 20 words, and that's fine, and some kids talk in complete sentences, and that's also fine.  My DD was talking like an adult at 20 months.  Her BFF probably had 15 words.  They are both 3 years old now, and you'd never know who was the earlier talker.   They both speak perfectly.

This is a perfect response!  There is a very WIDE range of normal for speech.  So what my DS is doing could be totally different than yours.  

He has several 2-3 word phrases he says and has at least 100 words.  But he had 5 words at 15 months, so it basically took off over night.  

macchiatto

ChubbyCheekiesMom:

This is a perfect response!  There is a very WIDE range of normal for speech.  So what my DS is doing could be totally different than yours.  

He has several 2-3 word phrases he says and has at least 100 words.  But he had 5 words at 15 months, so it basically took off over night.  

That's a very good point. Neither of my boys was talking at all until a week before they turned 15m. And now, Alex has about 8-10 words and Will has 25-30. They're both in the "normal" range though.

anna7602

My pedi says she doesn't believe in measuring development by x number of words by x age. She says the real concern is if your child isn't trying to communicate at all or doesn't seem to understand what you are saying to him/her.

whitless

I'd be stretching to say that my DS has 10 words (it's more like 5 and a few common noises), so I think your DS sounds fantastic with that many!

punkfiction_v.3

dd1 had about the same amount (or less, but had another million in her "own language" lol) at that age. and dd2 was speaking in phrases. all kids are different.

WifeofaMarine

From what I've heard, there is a wide range of what is considered normal. DS (20.5 months old) can say about 20-30 words, a few numbers and letters, and a few simple phrases (more please, more juice, oh my, oh boy, oh wow).