When Do Babies Start Talking?

At twelve months the language items are waving bye-bye, understanding no well enough to pause, and calling a parent mama or dada or another special name. That last one matters more than it looks. The milestone is not making the sound, which happens months earlier; it is attaching the sound to a person.

At fifteen months the list adds trying to say one or two words besides mama and dada, looking at a familiar object when you name it, following a direction given with both words and a gesture, and pointing to ask for something. At eighteen months it becomes trying to say three or more words besides mama and dada, and following a one-step direction with no gesture to help.

At two years, the checkpoint is saying at least two words together, like more milk. Notice what is absent: a word count. The count turns up six months later.

• 12 months: calls a parent 'mama' or 'dada'; waves bye-bye; understands 'no'
• 15 months: tries to say one or two other words; points to ask for something
• 18 months: tries to say three or more other words; follows a one-step direction without gestures
• 24 months: says at least two words together, like 'More milk'
• 30 months: says about 50 words; joins two words with an action word, like 'Doggie run'

You will find fifty words by two on a great many parenting sites, and it is not invented. The AAP's own guidance says most toddlers master at least fifty spoken words by the end of the second year. The CDC's checklist puts the same skill at thirty months. Both are accurate, and the gap between them is a change in what the lists measure rather than a disagreement about children.

The CDC's milestones describe what 75% or more of children can do by a given age. They used to describe roughly the average age, which is to say half of children. Moving the bar from half to three quarters necessarily pushes every milestone later on the calendar, without anything about children having changed.

That has a consequence worth holding on to. On the current list, a milestone age is not a target to hit. It is the age by which most children are already past it. Missing one is a reason to ask a question rather than a finding, and a child who is ahead of it is not ahead of schedule so much as ordinary.

Two of the four language items on the fifteen-month list involve no speech at all: looking at a familiar object when you name it, and pointing to ask for something or to get help. That is not the checklist padding itself out. Understanding runs ahead of production in every child, and gesture is where the intent to communicate shows up first.

So a child with three words who points, shows you things, brings you the book they want read and shakes their head at the wrong shoes is communicating a great deal. Vocabulary is one channel among several, and it is the last one to open.

Talk more, in ordinary sentences, about whatever is actually in front of you. Narrating the shopping counts. Reading the same board book for the ninetieth time counts, and the repetition is the point rather than a failure of imagination.

Two habits are worth building deliberately. The first is leaving a gap: after you say something, pause long enough for a reply, even when the reply is a noise. Turn-taking is a skill, and it is learned by being given a turn. The second is answering what your child meant rather than what they said, then handing the words back. A point at the counter answered with 'you want the banana? here is the banana' does more than a correction does.

Screens are the one item on the other side of the ledger. The CDC's own advice for babies is to keep screen time to video calls with family, because babies learn language by talking, playing and interacting with people. A screen does not leave a gap for a reply.

At the next checkup, whenever something on the list above is missing at the age it appears. Sooner than that if a skill has gone away: losing words your child used to use is the one item on this page worth a phone call rather than a note in the diary.

Beyond that, the honest thing to say is that speech delay is its own subject with its own thresholds, and it is a question for a paediatrician who can hear your child rather than for an article. What is worth knowing in the meantime is that every US state and territory runs an early intervention programme, and that the CDC's own advice is to call it directly to find out whether your child can get services.