I Shouldn't Have Given Up On Him!

[AnnaNova]

so a while back when my son was about 5 mo we started introducing some signs in hopes that he will respond, well, he never did, not once, and at about 12 mo or so i had given up thinking he's just one of those kids who never respond.
WELL, now at 16 mo, he all of a sudden started signing!!!!! i havent used any of the signs in MONTHS!!!!
he started with the "milk" sign, and then he kept doing this thing where he'd raise his arms and wave palms of his hands back and forth... i couldnt figure out for a while, and then it hit me - he is doing "all done"!
he's not really verbal yet, only says mama, dada, and such...
i was soooo surprised, i shouldnt have given up!

[AFWife]

We just had this happen too! I signed...and signed...and signed...until he was about 9 months and I threw up my hands and said, "He just doesn't care." (Because it seemed like he didn't! He would just stare at me like I was dumb)

Well, I've had to cut back the nursing sessions since I got pregnant (which has led to tears of course) The other night he was pulling at my shirt and I reminded him that if he nursed now he wouldn't have any at bedtime (He's not verbal but I think he understands some of what I say) Anyway, he started frantically making the "milk" sign! I didn't think at first and asked DH "What is he doing???" and he started laughing and said, "Milk!"

[bandgeek]

It didn't "click" for my DS until he was 14 months and then he just took off! I think it's hard for parents not to get discouraged because you read all these stories about babies signing between 6 and 9 months, but I think that's the exception, not the rule. Even the babies I know growing up in primarily ASL homes don't really start signing until closer to a year.

Yay for your DS!

[ShyDaisi]

Micah didn't pick it up until around 14 months either. I think he didn't pick on signing because I didn't sign enough (only chose 1 or 2 signs because I thought I would overwhelm him), and then he finally picked it up. Funnily enough, he has never really signed the first sign I showed him - milk. He has well over 150 signs, and still does not use milk. I can show it to him and he will tell me what that is, but he refuses to use it.

[Abraisme]

Originally Posted by bandgeek

It didn't "click" for my DS until he was 14 months and then he just took off! I think it's hard for parents not to get discouraged because you read all these stories about babies signing between 6 and 9 months, but I think that's the exception, not the rule. Even the babies I know growing up in primarily ASL homes don't really start signing until closer to a year.

Yay for your DS!

This is how it was for my son as well. I gave up between 10-13mo because it wasn't going anywhere, then one day it just clicked on. My son was a late communicator all the way around and didn't say mama until he was 2.

[hillymum]

Yea for you!
One of my fondest memories is of when my youngest was 11 months old. He was signing to his reflection in the ovens glass door, asking his new friend if he wanted to have a bath with him. Baths were my sons favourite activity! He was so sad when his reflection, after saying yes, didn't go to the bathroom with him.

[mokey4]

This just happened to us too!! DD is 16 months old, I've been signing to her since around 7 months, and she has NEVER signed back to me until this month. I've definitely slowed down on signing to her, but I still do the standard ones at least once a day (milk, potty, more). Well the first thing she signed was more- clear as day, perfectly! It was because we were having dinner and she didn't want her dinner, she wanted raisins, which she had as a snack earlier and saw on the counter. I was excited that she was using a sign, but darnit I didn't want to give her raisins just then!

Then the next day she signed for milk, clear as day! She's always understood the sign, because whenever I sign milk to her she would burrow her head in my chest (which has been her sign for wanting milk). But now she does the hand sign!

She has yet to sign for potty, but she knows how to say the word verbally. She doesn't seem to equate saying "potty" with actually needing to use it, but I have faith that will someday happen. We do EC and just kind of hit or miss with the timing, because she's never been very good at telling us when she needs to go.

Oh and the other day I told DD "hot" and pantomimed hot for her. She thought it was hysterical. Hours later and yesterday she said "(h)ot" and copied my pantomime- pointing at her food, then later the stove and my coffee. So I think she got it

Hey, better late than never, and it's fun, isn't it?

[hillymum]

Yea for you!
One of my fondest memories is of when my youngest was 11 months old. He was signing to his reflection in the ovens glass door, asking his new friend if he wanted to have a bath with him. Baths were my sons favourite activity! He was so sad when his reflection, after saying yes, didn't go to the bathroom with him.

[mckittre]

I don't think that's late, I think that's normal. I suspect the baby signing websites tend to have the stories of the 6 month old signers, but that's not the norm. I was diligent with my son all along, and got almost nothing until he was around 1. He had 3 signs at 12 months (and no spoken words), but between 13 and 14 months, it absolutely exploded.

By 14 months he had 43 signs. Now at 16 months he has almost 90 signs, and has only slowed down because I've slowed down looking new ones up for him, and because he's picking up verbal words more and more quickly.

I think more people ought to hear how long it takes for a typical baby, because I think they give up too quickly! It seems signing is really most useful between 1 and 2, when they understand everything but can't say much yet.

[swd12422]

It's definitely not too late! I wish this thread had come along a couple of years ago! The same thing happened to us, and as a result we only really did a few signs. But DS still uses "please" and "sorry" when he says them, and he used "help" A LOT. (That one didn't come til after we'd pretty much given up, but then he was a tiny toddler (around 13 months, I think) and would give ear-piercing shrieks and cry when he couldn't reach something. I'm not so good with the immediate screaming and crying, so I told him that the proper way to get help was to ask for it, and then each time he shrieked, I'd remind him of the sign for help and he caught on pretty quickly.)

[physmom]

Almost the exact same thing happened to us! We gave up early on. DD has learned a handful of signs but with a lot of other craziness going on, we ended up stopping. Then at 14 months DD found my sign language book and started pointing at the signs to learn them. She just took off like crazy! Now at 17 months she knows more than 150 signs. It´s helped so much, especially since we´re a bilingual family and I think some of the pronunciation is still difficult for her (and hard for us to understand).