Five month old has stopped "cooing" and "blabbering"

Hi all,

This is my first child, and I'm a little confused on her behavior.

Very happy, content, engaging baby. Started making little cooing
sounds at 2 months, which got more "mature" with time, and she then
learned to shriek happily and giggle/laugh. Around four months, it
seemed like her talking lessened. Now at five months, I hardly hear
her talking. She's still very engaging - does a lot of laughing and
giggling when we play, makes "mmm" sounds when I feed her her first
baby foods, and some grunts here & there if I'm feeding her too slowly.
But no repetition of vowels and such.

Is this ok? I'm less concerned because she otherwise still seems very
happy and "in touch" with her surroundings. It's quite possible she's
teething, as I've noticed she's biting/chewing on things in her mouth
rather than sucking on them, but I didn't expect that to affect her
blabbering.

Any past experience appreciated.

Thanks, DLS

In article . com, DLS says...

Hi all,

This is my first child, and I'm a little confused on her behavior.

Very happy, content, engaging baby. Started making little cooing
sounds at 2 months, which got more "mature" with time, and she then
learned to shriek happily and giggle/laugh. Around four months, it
seemed like her talking lessened. Now at five months, I hardly hear
her talking. She's still very engaging - does a lot of laughing and
giggling when we play, makes "mmm" sounds when I feed her her first
baby foods, and some grunts here & there if I'm feeding her too slowly.
But no repetition of vowels and such.

Is this ok? I'm less concerned because she otherwise still seems very
happy and "in touch" with her surroundings. It's quite possible she's
teething, as I've noticed she's biting/chewing on things in her mouth
rather than sucking on them, but I didn't expect that to affect her
blabbering.


How is she doing with her other milestones? Is she turning over, pushing up,
possibly even sitting up? How is her grasping? Is she progressing in these
kind of activities?

Cooing is pretty limited to young infants as I understand it, babbling varies
from baby to baby - my son never got into babbling at all!

If you have concerns, ask your pediatrician. But this sounds to me like a
normal kind of thing.

Banty
Any past experience appreciated.

Thanks, DLS

She seems to be progressing well otherwise. She's VERY strong and
loves to try and sit up (she can do so for a short while if she's
slightly forward with her hands on her knees. She doesn't really like
her tummy time, but she can roll like crazy from side to side, and when
on her tummy is noticeably stronger propping herself up as compared to
a month ago. She loves her exersaucer and her legs are so strong - she
can almost hold all her weight on her legs now when supported at her
underarms.

It might be in my imagination but she seems to be regarding things
differently - like taking the whole thing in and thinking about it.
Her grasping is getting more and more refined.

The "laugh" is definitely more mature, and she does do some
kinda-talking here and there, especially when she's in the car and
there's something in her mouth. It's just much less than before. Go
figure - I wanted the newly-found "happy shrieking" to go away, but now
I want it back!

It's just weird to me that this was after her 4-month checkup. I
should ask her doctor.

DLS

In article . com,
DLS wrote:


Hi all,

This is my first child, and I'm a little confused on her behavior.

Very happy, content, engaging baby. Started making little cooing
sounds at 2 months, which got more "mature" with time, and she then
learned to shriek happily and giggle/laugh. Around four months, it
seemed like her talking lessened. Now at five months, I hardly hear
her talking. She's still very engaging - does a lot of laughing and
giggling when we play, makes "mmm" sounds when I feed her her first
baby foods, and some grunts here & there if I'm feeding her too slowly.
But no repetition of vowels and such.

Does she respond to the sound of your voice? To music? I ask because
stopping babbling can sometimes be an indicator of hearing impairment.
If you have no other reason to suspect hearing problems, I don't think
the not-babbling on its own is cause for concern on this front, but if
you had other nagging concerns, this would be one additional factor in
puzzling this out.

I don't want to worry you, and my experience suggests that if you think
your child can hear, she almost certainly can. But I did want to put
this out there in case it does trigger recognition of a hearing problem --
if there is a hearing problem, the sooner one finds out the better.

I do think it is much more likely that she is just concentrating on
other things right now. My kids all had times where various skills/
milestones seemed to disappear for a while, while they "worked on"
something else.

Take care,
--Robyn

Thanks Robin, good point. She does respond perfectly still to noise
(turning at her name, startling at the dog bark, etc.), so I think her
hearing is in check. I'm heartened to hear that your kids had
temporarily-disappearing skills as well - it definitely seems like
she's "working on" noticing her world at a more advanced level, so
maybe that's giving her some silent pause.

Thanks!

My DD did exactly the same thing; she stopped "talking" completely at 5
months. A few weeks later, she started up again. Now at 6 months, I
sometimes wish she would be quiet for just a little while. I didn't
make the connection with teething until you mentioned it, but she did
get 2 teeth at 5.5 months.

"DLS" wrote in message
Around four months, it
seemed like her talking lessened. Now at five months, I hardly hear
her talking. She's still very engaging - does a lot of laughing and
giggling when we play, makes "mmm" sounds when I feed her her first
baby foods, and some grunts here & there if I'm feeding her too slowly.
But no repetition of vowels and such.

Any past experience appreciated.

Babies will usually stop one activity and concentrate on another activity
until that one is mastered and then they will resume the other activity
until that one is mastered. Is she trying to sit up, roll over, crawl, pull
up, etc... Gross motor skills usually come first and then fine motor skills
and somewhere in there babbling and learning to talk and make sounds come in
there. I wouldn't worry unless she is not working on other skills.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

In message . com, DLS
writes
Hi all,

This is my first child, and I'm a little confused on her behavior.

Very happy, content, engaging baby. Started making little cooing
sounds at 2 months, which got more "mature" with time, and she then
learned to shriek happily and giggle/laugh. Around four months, it
seemed like her talking lessened. Now at five months, I hardly hear
her talking. She's still very engaging - does a lot of laughing and
giggling when we play, makes "mmm" sounds when I feed her her first
baby foods, and some grunts here & there if I'm feeding her too slowly.
But no repetition of vowels and such.

That's more or less exactly what my daughter (now two and a half) did.
When she was fairly newborn, we used to have long complex conversations,
then all of a sudden she stopped. Can't remember when exactly.

There's nothing wrong with her language skills now :-)

IME, it's nothing to worry about. Especially if you're still talking to
her.
--
Mogget

DLS wrote:

Is this ok? I'm less concerned because she otherwise still seems very
happy and "in touch" with her surroundings. It's quite possible she's
teething, as I've noticed she's biting/chewing on things in her mouth
rather than sucking on them, but I didn't expect that to affect her
blabbering.

Depending on how long this has been going on it might be nothing or it
might be something. If it lasts more than a few weeks I would
definitely talk to the ped about it (no harm in doing so sooner). A
hearing test would probably be the first step. You mentioned that she
clearly does hear, but that doesn't exclude limited hearing impairment.
No harm in a phone call if it turns out to be nothing.

Kate, ignorant foot soldier of the medical cartel (pediatric resident)
and the Bug, 2 years

My son did something like this, tho he was older. He stopped babbling
and was fairly quiet. He said only a few words (he was about 18 mos),
much less than most of the other kids his age that I know. We talked
to the ped at DS's 18mos appt., and she recommended that we see a
speech therapist for an evaluation. That was very valuable. The
speech therapist said he seemed on track, just maybe thrying to figure
this talking thing out. Within a couple of weeks or so, he said, "I
want up there," when he wanted on my bed. He is now often giving me 3-
or 4-word sentences and he uses pronouns and prepositions correctly,
and this is the child who still has a fairly small vocabulary (growing
vocab, but still smaller than his friends'). Yesterday, he picked up
the phone after I was finished with a call, and he was pushing buttons
and had turned the phone on, so I leaned over and turned it off, and he
said, "no, mama, no, my turn." This is the child who still points and
grunts at the cracker box.

My advice would be to talk to the ped just in case so that you catch
any potential problem early, but most likely your little one is just
working on some other developmental milestone right now and her little
brain is occupied with other things.

PC