Anyone using baby sign language?

[P.J.]

So DS is almost 5 months and I've just started introducing signs to him. For now it's milk, potty (we're ECing), sleep, mama, papa. I don't want to overload him at first, but I definitely want to add more ~not sure how many is too many at first though..???

I'm just curious to hear how many of you are doing baby signing and how it's going. When did you start? How many and which signs are you using? Has your baby signed back yet and when / what age did it first happen?

I'm really excited about this. DS is high-needs and I am hoping when he can sign and communicate more, the near-constant fussing might subside a little. In any case before he was born I figured I'd try signing because it just seems like fun and could make life a little easier for baby and parents. Yay for baby signing!

[Ninetales]

We've been doing it for about a month now. She hasn't started signing back yet, but she's only eight months. The instructor in the class I took suggested keeping to three or so signs at first. We've been doing "milk," "kitty" and "diaper" pretty consistently. I do others when the opportunity arises but mostly those three.

I've noticed her opening and closing her fist at random times. I don't think she's saying "milk" but practicing the movement, like babbling. I'm excited to see when she starts signing back.

[Knitting Mama]

Cecilia is 6 months old, and we consistently do "milk," "more," "all done," and "kitty." I, too, am very excited for the day that she signs something to me!!

[ErinYay]

Keep it up! We started at 4 months, then I forgot all about it. We started again this week with "more" and "milk," as those are the two things she wants but *only* communicates with whining, which drives me batty.

I don't think you can overload them. Just think of signs as words you don't say- you wouldn't worry about saying too many words, so using too many signs isn't a problem. *I* use the signs whenever I (remember to!) say the word, and only shape her hands maybe once a day or so. They'll pick it up just by seeing it, and you can help shape the hands as your kiddo starts getting it.

[sssheri]

My LO is only 3 weeks old, but we are going to be doing baby signing. My friend did it with her daughter and she has an amazing sign vocabulary. Eventually she started making up her words for things, especially animals.

I'll jump in with some of my own questions: What age is good to start? What signs should we start with?

[Knitting Mama]

Most experts say 6 months for starting. We've been signing casually with Cecilia since about 3 months but now that she's 6 months I am ramping it up and signing evey time I say a word we're working on.

As for what signs to start with, that's totally up to you. It's best to choose ones you use often, for obvious reasons. "Milk" (or what we call "milkies" ) is always a good one. "Cat" or "dog" if you have pets. "Mama," "papa" and so on, "sister" and "brother" if needed, etc. We're also doing "more," and "all done."

[kanga1622]

DS is 7.5 months and I just started signing consistently to him this past week. We are working on "more", "all done", and "eat". So far he doesn't sign back but does giggle at me every time I ask him if he wants to eat. I take that as a yes and hope that someday soon he will sign that back at me since he seems to know what that means.

[Ruby2]

Dd is 10 months and she LOVES to sign "book." It's hilarious. The first thing she sees in the morning is usually a book case and she starts right off with the sign and saying, "buhh, buhhh, buhhh." You can tell it makes her really happy to be understood! We just introduced "change" when she's getting her diaper changed and she picked it up almost immediately. The babysitter swears dd signed "change" to her right after she pooped the other day.

She also inconsistantly does "milk." We've been doing "cat" forever but she really doesn't like that one for some reason.

I need to look up "done," that sounds like a good one.

[Knitting Mama]

It's basically hands palm up that you flip over to palms down.

This is a great resource for learning signs (though they say finished is shaking hands above shoulders. Either would do I would imagine):
http://www.signwithme.com/002_browse_signs.asp

[maptome]

We started late, around 13 months. By 14 months, she knew about 50. Now she's 15 months, and still only knows about 50. I haven't really been on top of it...

[beebalmmama]

We casually signed with ds 1. Starting around 7 months or so with "milk", "more", "eat" and "all done". He started signing "milk" first probably around 10-11 months. After he was signing back the above, we were introducing more sign but by then he was talking so much that we got kind of lazy about it.

We're starting with "milk", "more", "eat", "drink" and "all done" with ds 2, at about 6 months. He's not signing back yet now at 10 months. But I know he understands "milk", "eat" and "drink". He's much less vocal than his brother was, so I'm hoping signing will be more helpful communicating with him.

[Adaline'sMama]

Originally Posted by Cecilia's Mama

"Milk" (or what we call "milkies" ) is always a good one."

Wow youre just as cheezy as I am. We use the sign for milk, only I say "nursies"

We also use more, food, kitty, and all done.

[kcstar]

You don't limit what words you say to your DC, why limit what signs you use?

We started signing with DS at birth, whatever signs we knew. We'd read to him most nights, and sign the words we knew along with the book.

At 4 months, we saw him sign "diaper", "sleep", and "mama". But that was around the holidays, and we kinda dropped it for a few weeks.

It took him a few months after we resumed signing to start picking up words again, but he did. At 3 years old, he still signs with us, especially when he's upset.

[Knitting Mama]

Originally Posted by Adaline'sMama

Wow youre just as cheezy as I am. We use the sign for milk, only I say "nursies"

We also use more, food, kitty, and all done.

I decided on "milkies" because I'm assuming that we'll be nursing for a long while, and if she asks me for milkies in the middle of a public place it will be less embarrassing than her yelling for boobs (my husband wanted to teach her that one).

[hakeber]

We have signed mama, daddy and brother since days old, and others as we learn them. Up to now as a family we sign to her milk, eat, banana, hungry, all done, drink, and potty (we also EC).

At around 4 mos she started signing daddy and mommy and brother, and now she can also do hungry, drink and eat. Sometimes I think she is just grabbing for something and then she gets irrate and I realize she is signing milk. Banana and potty are actually pretty complex signs, so I might not be recognizing her attempts at them as easily.

I am not an expert at signing, so I have to learn as I go, but I think it is more about overwhelming to me than her.

[jenfl]

We did it with DD and are starting with DS.

With DD, we started with just "nurse" at around 7-8 months. She started signing back at around 10-11 months. With DS we do it a few times a day; I know it'll take him a while to catch on.

[P.J.]

For those of you signing mama and papa, how do you introduce those?

I've started signing papa whenever DH is around and holding or playing with DS. I guess that should be pretty clear, right? This morning DH said he (DH) should start signing mama when baby's with me...but I thought that would be confusing if I'm always signing papa and papa is always signing mama, kwim. And although DH is into baby signing, he's not really consistent and he'll forget a lot to do it, so it's pretty much just me doing it for now. But then when should I sign mama? I mean, I'm with DS basically all the time! I just don't want to sign mama and have baby think it's something else ~mama is such a constant "thing", how to differentiate it?

Maybe I should just drop those (or at least mama) for now...??

[jenfl]

We never did "mama" and "papa" because DD babbled those before she started signing.

[jenfl]

To keep us from getting overwhelmed with signs and signing all the time, I *just* did "nurse" until DD started signing back. It's easy for me to do, easy for the kid to do, and easy to associate with an action.

When she started signing "nurse", THEN we knew she was ready to understand and reciprocate signs and started introducing more.

That made it a lot easier for all those months when we were signing but she wasn't.

[cloudbutterfly]

I started signing to DS at about that age with More, Milk and Book. He signed back to me the first time (that I realized what he was doing, anyway) at 8 and a half months, an he quickly learned 9 signs...then took a break in learning new ones to learn to cross crawl. Now at 11 months he does at least 25 signs, two thirds of those starting in the past two weeks, and understands many, many more signs that I haven't spotted him doing yet. He babbles in sign, and even signs to himself while playing on his own...it's so cute!

Once he started signing back, I added more and more signs...it's almost addictive once you start seeing it work. I sign while I read to him, while we play, while we're walking around, while I feed him in his highchair. If he shows an interest in something, I look up the sign (usually here: http://www.signingsavvy.com/). I've also gotten the Baby Signing Time DVDs from the library, and now some of the regular Signing Time DVDs. They're the only things I'll let him watch with me, because I can see them benefiting him...literally, considering he's done a sign for the first time more than once while signing back to the babies on screen.

I sign mama and dada to him, but not as much anymore because he's been babbling the sounds long enough for them to become words. But I still do them because they're similar to grandma and grandpa, and I'm hoping he'll pick those up with his grandparents visiting so often.

If anyone reads this thread, wondering if they really want to put the effort in, DO IT!!!! I can't imagine not being able to communicate with my son on this level...he has so much he wants to talk about! Also, we're starting to potty train with signs, and though he's not signing potty just yet I feel like he understands what I'm saying better when I sign, and he really enjoys potty time so far....lots of benefits to this!