first words at 9 months?

Question

i took my baby to the dr's. today for her 9 month shots.
and she asked if she was saying ma ma ma and da da da i said yes. she babbles all the time. she said thats not babbling .
she is saying mama and dada . i said your telling me she is 9 months old and calling for me and her daddy when she says that?
and she said yes. when i got home i called my mom to tell her what was said. and she was like "yeah right" she is not saying her
first words at 9 months. now i would like to believe she is. but i am a little skepticle (spelling?) what do you think?

Answer 1

absolutely. generally babies do not verbalize their first words until 12 months, but it is entirely possible to be as early as 8 or 9 months is saying a first word. if she is attaching meaning to when she says "mama" or "dada" then those are definitely first words.

congratulations! keep on doing what you are doing with your baby! :)

Answer 2

It is *rare* for a 9 month old baby to be using real words, but it does happen. You can only really tell in retrospect. If, by the time your daughter it a year old, she has a vocabulary of 20 words, then she was probably saying real words now. If she still seems to be just babbling at a year old, then it wasn't a real word.

Other things that can help you decide... If she says "mamamamama" and stops when you look at her and smile and the same for her father, then you can they're probably real words. If she looks right at you when she says "mamamamama", it may also be real words. If it only has 1-2 syllables, it's more likely to be words than babbling. If it goes on and on, it's just babbling.

Please ignore ridiculous statements. A recent question on Yahoo Answers showed that many parents thought their baby said their first words at 3-6 months--something which is absolutely impossible.

Answer 3

There is no specific age at which a child says their first word. She may be saying ma ma or da da but not fully understand that you are ma ma. I began talking fluently at the age of 9 or 10 months, singing row row row your boat and reciting other nursery rhymes. Don't get excited and think that your baby is a genius because I am not. I'm not saying that she isn't but it isn't a sign. You probably work with her a lot more than some parents work with their children and she is picking it up quick. Keep up the good work and read to her endlessly. If you don't have story books read her the newpaper or from your issue of cosmo, good housekeeping, seventeen or whatever you have handy.

Answer 4

Both my children didn't say Mama or Dada until around 15 months. And by saying Mama or Dada it was a specific sound and obvious gesturing that indicated that they knew who I was or who my husband was. Both my kids did a lot of babbling, and my second child (19 months - boy) still does a lot of babbling. His vocabulary is up to about 50 words or so, although his favorites are still uh-oh, Dada, and OH NO.

Good luck :)

Answer 5

well it is defenitly right, see the reason it does not sound like they are speaking and are babbling is cause all the words run into eachother, the baby is at the first step, pronouncing sounds. by time she is 11 or 12 months she will be able to make it sound more like a word than a run on sentence. but yes she is saying mama and dada. congradulations of your kids first words! it is not all that uncommon at all for babies to say thier first words at 9 months!

Answer 6

i have a 9 month old that says mama and dada too. at first i thought it was just babbling, until one day she was crying and wanted me to pick her up and she goes "ma....ma" while looking at me and crying. shes done that quite a few times now. so i do think that it is intentional. watch your baby when she says it, does she look at the person who she is saying? if she does that is a good sign that she is saying it intentionally. its hard to believe a 9 month old can say words huh?

Answer 7

If it sounds like mama or dada then go ahead and brag! It's a wonderful thing that she already can "babble" your names. I think she is going to have a very easy time learning how to talk, as long as you keep encouraging her now that she can say these things. Congrats!

Answer 8

I think it's totally normal that your daughter is saying words at 9 months. Believe it or not, in the Guinness Book of World Records, there is actually an entry about a baby who, at 6 months old, could tell his doctor about an ear infection he had. At 10 months old, he could read! Can you imagine!

Answer 9

I think it's very possible, my daughter said "mama" at 5 1/2 months and started talking at nine months, so yeah, it's probably what she's saying. My daughter could say the alphabet in English and Spanish when she was 20 months old, so everything's possible.

Answer 10

Why do you not believe your doctor? A child's first words are usually mama, dada, or baba. Not all children develop at the same rate, perhaps your child is more advanced than others. Encourage your child and they may say more words before you know it.