I’ve always wanted to be a mother. It’s one thing I’ve never doubted that I’d actually have a fair shot at being good at. And let’s face it, while we all have good intentions when we set our eyes on becoming parents, many of these intentions fall by the wayside once baby actually arrives (my big one was cloth diapers). However, one of the things I followed through with that couldn’t possibly imagine my life without is baby signs.
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I picked up a book on baby signing at a library sale a few years back and it changed my life! Baby signing has many advantages. Because children aren’t able to speak well enough to communicate desires until about 2 years, signing gives them the opportunity to tell you what they want, need, or simply what’s on their mind at a much younger age. It may surprise you what all children pick up so early on!
Many parents and caregivers use a handful of baby signs to cover the basics (milk, more, all done), but I completely fell in love with being able to speak with my daughter and loved how it improved our bond, so I started learning and using signs for all kinds of things — animals, flowers, books, food.
While baby signing is based in American Sign Language (ASL), it’s really more about what works for your child and knowing their adaptation of the sign. As their fine motor skills develop, their signs will likely start to more closely resemble ASL, but unless you intend to use signing long term, it’s mostly about what works for you and your child.
The book I used to learn most of these concepts was Baby Signs: How to Talk to Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk. If you decide to try signing, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this. It has simple diagrams and various adaptations for a number of signs, timelines, and lots and lots of examples to get you excited about your journey. If you opt for a simpler approach, there are also a number of baby board books available with the commonly used signs. If you choose the go beyond those, you can simply search “ASL [word]” when you’d like to learn something new.
Here are some fun examples of when our daughter used signs:
Flower:
After my husband and I finished our basement, we purchased a couple of cacti for our new living space. After he hung the new shelf and placed them on it, she started to pinch her nose. It was late fall, so it had been awhile since he had seen the sign, but after a moment it dawned on him that the spiky red bulb on top of the plant resembled exactly what she was signing — flower.
Cheese:
One afternoon while we were busily cleaning the house, we lost track of time and lunchtime snuck right past us. Our sweet, happy daughter walked up to me, rubbed her hands together, walked over to the fridge, and then rubbed them together again. All I had to say was, “You want some cheese?” She nodded, walked to her high chair, and life moved on. While the moment could have ended in pouts and tears, she was easily able to communicate exactly what she wanted. It’s in these simple transactions that could go many ways that I’m so relieved that we know these.
Squirrels and kitties:
When our daughter was about 16 months, we went to visit a friend. Our friend had two things in her home that my daughter loved: a beautiful embroidered pillow of a squirrel and a very friendly (and tolerant) kitty. Our daughter loved the squirrel and rocked her stuffies in the chair with it all weekend long. Every time she saw it, she patted her sweet cheek (the sign for squirrel) and scampered over to see it.
Our daughter, who’d never really been around a cat, was especially curious when the kitty was eating (doubling signs for kitty and eating). When we arrived home from our weekend, she continued to share her interest in these two things as she’d sign squirrel and look out our windows with our dogs, and as she flipped through the pages of some of her favorite books pointing out the kitties. Did you know that there’s a cat on almost every page of Love You Forever?
While I’m not sure of all the complexities of development, learning an alternate way to communicate at a young age has many short and long-term developmental benefits. I’ve loved every minute of our baby signing experience and would love to hear about yours.
Enjoy!
-Funky Crunchy Mama
Yes, love baby signing! I know sign myself, and have seen it work so well with babies to help them communicate & relieve frustration. Great post!
Thank you!
It has always amazed me how fast children can pick up on sign language. I was a nanny for many years, and I taught all of those kiddos some basic ASL. Sure made it easier on all of us!
Great post!
Thank you!
I’ve baby signed a little bit more with each child. It definitely helped with my second, who had a speech delay.
I loved teaching my son to sign! It helped us be able to communicate with him so much sooner. He had fewer tantrums and meltdowns because he felt like he could communicate his needs. My daughter has hardly learned any signs because she barely gave us time! She just talks! LOL
These are great additional signs. We taught milk, more, eat, please, thank you, and water. Of course “more” was the quickest learned 😛 After that was milk!
Milk was our daughter’s first sign. One day, my MIL (our daycare) said she crawled right up to the fridge and signed it when she wanted her bottle. She also could — but wouldn’t — say Dada for several months (we heard it 2-3 times, so knew she could say it); however, she had no hesitation with signing it.
We have taught our 3 youngest baby signs and it has saved us and them a LOT of frustration and tears. I recommend it to every parent! Have you heard of the Baby Signing Time dvd’s? That’s what we used and our kiddos loved watching and learning along with the fun songs <3
I have, but I haven’t checked them out yet. We watch My Smart Hands on YouTube sometimes, but usually we just look up whatever she’s feeling curious about that day.
Remarkable! Love it. Signing is an excellent way to communicate with children of all ages. I taught a few signs to the students in my classes; it saves a lot of wear and tear on all of us. And if I needed to express my frustration, all I had to do was show a grumpy face!! You are doing a fantastic job teaching your munchkin. However, by this time she might be in preschool . Send her. You need the break and she needs to learn to live with others. Also, it’ll improve her immune system . Who knew we’re too clean!! Dirt and mess=a healthy kid.
She’ll be in 4K next year (and I definitely need the break)! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!