When do babies say their first words?

The short answer

Most babies say a recognisable first word somewhere around 12 months. Timing varies, but a missed milestone or a concern is worth discussing rather than explaining away. The CDC’s milestone checklists — rewritten in 2022 to describe what most children (about 75%) do by an age, not the average — put it this way: by 12 months a child calls a parent “mama” or “dada” or another special name; by 15 months they try to say one or two words besides mama or dada; by 18 months, three or more; and by 24 months they put two words together, like “more milk.”¹

ASHA, the professional body for speech-language pathologists, gives a similar shape: between 19 and 24 months a child typically uses and understands at least 50 different words and starts joining two of them.²

What usually comes first

Talking is the visible end of a long build. Before words, most children go through the same stretch in roughly the same order:

• Cooing, then babbling (around 4 to 9 months) — strings of syllables like “bababa” that sound like the language around them.
• Understanding — by the first birthday most children respond to their name and follow simple, familiar words (“bath,” “bye-bye”) long before they say them.¹
• Pointing and showing (around 9 to 12 months) — the child points, holds something up, looks at you and back at it. This is the important one. Joint attention — the two of you looking at the same thing while you name it — is one of the best-documented predictors of early vocabulary.³

Pointing, showing, babbling and understanding give useful information about communication. They do not guarantee that spoken words will follow soon or rule out a delay.⁹

What helps

The research here is unusually consistent, and none of it involves buying anything.

Talk to them, about what they are looking at

The amount of speech directed to a child — not overheard, not from a screen — predicts their vocabulary and how fast they process words, even after accounting for family background.⁴ What you say matters too: naming things, varied words, and talk that follows the child’s attention rather than redirecting it.⁵ The practical version: when your child looks at the dog, say “dog.” When they hold up the cup, say “cup, yes, your cup.” Narrate the small things during routines — the bath, the highchair, the stroller — because those repeat every day, and repetition is how a word sticks.

Answer the attempt, not the accuracy

When your child says “ba” and reaches for the ball, the useful response is “Ball! Here’s the ball,” not a correction. They hear the real word from you in the moment it mattered, which is exactly the input that works.

A live person, not a recording

In a well-known 2003 study, nine-month-old infants exposed to Mandarin by a person in the room learned to hear its sound contrasts; the video and audio groups did not show the same learning on that speech-sound test.⁶ The result concerns a specific task, not every kind of screen learning. Screen guidance and practical alternatives are covered in our screen-time guide.^{7, 8}

Read the same book again

Toddlers ask for the same book because repetition is the point. Picture books work for the same reason pointing does: two people, one picture, one word, said out loud by someone the child loves.

When to ask your pediatrician

Talk with your child’s doctor about any missed milestone or communication concern. Examples include:

• No gestures. If gestures are limited or your child is not trying to share attention, mention it. Consider gestures alongside understanding and spoken language.¹
• Missed language milestones or lost skills. Do not wait for there to be no words. Contact the doctor promptly if words or other skills are lost, and ask about screening and a hearing check.^{1, 9, 10}

Learning more than one language does not cause a language disorder. Assessment should consider all of a child’s languages.¹¹ More on that in the bilingual toddler guide.

Where an app fits, honestly

Nowhere in the list above, and we make one. What a flashcard app can do is hand you the word — a clear picture and a native voice to copy, in a language you may not speak — so that you say it, at the moment your child is looking at the thing. The cards are optional prompts for shared talk, not a treatment or a developmental assessment. If you use ours, the free words are the same ones a first-year child points at anyway: milk, dog, ball, mama.