When He Can’t Tell You

He was 6 months behind what he should have been in learning to crawl, 6 months behind when he should have been walking, so when he couldn’t talk, I thought he just needed 6 months to catch up. Little did I know, this was the beginning of his speech journey. 

Speech benchmarks say he should be able to communicate and use at least 120 words by 20 months and 150-200 words by 24 months. And he knew 3.

Three words and they were more sounds than words. He could grunt in 14 different ways and get what he wanted, but he couldn’t tell you.

I fell into the Instagram trap, watching stories of my friends’ kiddos that as his age were singing Let it Go and talking in full sentences. I was devastated.

Why can’t he tell me when he needs a drink?

Why can’t he tell me when he is tired?

Why can’t he use words?

Why can’t he tell me when to listen to Baby Shark on repeat?

When he can’t tell you what he needs and wants and simply communicate, it is frustrating for him and for anyone around him. 

When he can’t tell you, that’s when he needs help and so do you.

When we made his 2-year appointment, I knew that the doctor would be concerned, so I decided to be proactive and contact our HELP ME GROW intervention program for our county. If he qualified, he could get speech therapy every week and perhaps other help if he needed it.  

The ball was rolling, he had been assessed, tested and had observed structured play, all so we could take further action. Our county does an amazing job and well before our 2-year visit, we had a plan. Testing well below where he should be for speech, he needed speech therapy. 

So what did I do wrong? Did I talk for him? Did my other children talk for him so he didn’t have to? Did I not say words and talk to him like I should? Where did I go wrong? And these questions could go on and on and on. 

Insert Val into our lives. Our sweet speech therapist who talked me off the ledge. She assured me that every child is different, and that our son just needed some extra help and that I needed to let go of the feeling that I had not done something correctly. He needed our help and we would make small goals for him to reach, and work with him and together we would help him learn to say what he can’t tell us now.  

Whew! Confirmed by the doctor at the 2-year check-up, we needed to take action, get a hearing test and start therapy ASAP.

So we did.

I want to write that he knows 400 words now and has told me to “Mom, you shouldn’t have worried a bit”  but the truth is, he still can’t talk and this is hard.

He can use the 15+ signs he knows and he can make 10 animal sounds. He can make silly noises now and shake his head yes and no. He can smile and spit raspberries and voice his displeasure with screeching and screaming. He can laugh at all the appropriate times, and many of the not-so-appropriate.  

We are meeting small goals and surpassing some of those goals in speech therapy. We are using technology in cool ways to learn and we are working through the week on sounding out words, repeating words over and over and learning even more signs to help us communicate. We have a great team around us and we are not giving up.

This is going to be hard.

This is going to be a process.

We’ve got a plan in place.

We are not going to stop until he can tell us.