8 Month Old Not Babbling

My daughter stopped babbling for a while around that age. Same as your son, she would just do mmmm-mmmmm-mmmm all the time. Turns out all she was teething. Once her teeth popped through she went back to babbling and on to yelling.
I hope that's all it is with your son.

My daughter didn't babble much either. She was actually very quiet and would often just kind of sneak up on us. She was mobile much earlier and just seemed to enjoy taking in the things going on around her. Some babies just prefer to study out the things around them first. When my daughter turned 20 months old just all the sudden starting talking like crazy about 2 weeks later she was stringing together 3 and 3 word sentences. Now at 26 months she talks all the time. The good thing is that your son is communicating with the people around him with his eye contact and his body. If your son still isn't speaking much by the age of 2 you might encourage him to use his words by pretending you don't understand his body language. Until then I wouldn't worry, especially if you have notices advances in other aspects of his development.

This sounds just like my son who will be 3 in June. He wouldn't really make the sounds that the books said he should be making and really preferred people to toys. I was anxious about it but my husband kept telling me not to worry, he was communicating and interacting. Then at nine months he said his first word (the dog's name) and by a year he had a handful of words and now he is much further advanced in speech then other kids his age and talks nonstop. Supposedly Einstein didn't talk until he was three. I would say not to worry but keep a watch and best of luck.

Have the doctor check for fluid on the ears.

At ten months I finely got others to see that he was not making as many noises, sounds as he should, they did a hearing test which he passed, they said to come back in six months if he had not progressed. At 12 months he had his first ear infection. The doctor noted for the first time fluid on the ears, even when the infection was gone. He had three more infections before he was 16 months, at 16 months he got tubes put in both ears. With in two weeks he had three words, and many more sounds. I believe he had fluid on the ears since he was little and so things sounded like they were under water for him till the tubes.

good luck
S. Broadbent
www.homewithkai.com

The Children's Hospital here in Denver says to get them evaluated at 9 months if they're not babbling. Not sure what you have in your area, but they probably would say about the same. My daughter was not babbling at 8 mos. and I was very worried. (I'd love to have just one kid who doesn't need speech therapy!) At 9 months she started babbling right on cue. Now, at less than 10 months, she says "Dada", "Mmmmmma-mmmmmma" (not sure if that's acceptable or not), "Bu-Bu" for both "Buddy" and Bye-bye. She is also using several sign language signs which, although it helps develop language, can delay speech, although not always. I know our Children's Hospital was very helpful when I started calling for my daughter's problems. I really had a bunch of non-specific questions. They asked a lot of questions and got us set up for an evaluation. She's now in feeding therapy 2x a month, which should help with speech also. It doesn't hurt to call. You might just find out he's well within the norms. They'll know what to ask to assess that. GL!