How Do I Get My Toddler To Stop Talking So Much?

I almost called a speech therapist for my daughter. She had just turned two and was really not speaking much. We’d taught her some rudimentary sign language and that’s what she was using to communicate to us whether she was hungry. Other than that, she didn’t really express her thoughts.

I have old YouTubes of her pounding her index finger into her palm (“I’m hungry”) and then really pounding her index finger into her palm (“no, really, I’m really hungry”) but not so much as a “mama” to go with it.

She joined a co-op pre-school a few days a week shortly after her birthday. The first day I worked at the co-op, I noticed that while some of the gathered eight kids spoke, very few spoke to each other. The only conversation I heard all day was Lucinda asking Theo if he liked hummus. (He did.)

But a few months later, everything had changed. By then only one of the kids was really non-verbal. The rest were carrying on quite complex conversations, jokes even. Even my 2-year-old. Her vocabulary skyrocketed.

Which was great.

Until now. Now, she will not be quiet. She’ll be four in August. She is very social and she loves company. Part of the problem might be that she really only talks to the same four people all day — me, her dad, her sister and her nanny. So when a new face comes around, she wants to tell them everything. And she does, without ceasing.

So what am I supposed to do? I keep reminding her that a good friend doesn’t just talk but asks questions, too. And I suggest, gently, that she simmer down a bit if she’s too excited about the story she’s telling regarding the wolf she saw at the zoo.

Is it even a problem? I have no idea. I just find it needs to be toned down a notch.

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