Talking with signs

[MandiKay3]

I am excited to teach Savana how to sign. She is 9 months and already claps and waves good-bye. I am going to start with eat, hungry, more, and try a few more after those. It will be so much fun to learn with her!

[P.J.]

I tried with sign language but was never consistent enough. The only one he ever learned was "more", which he still  uses sometimes. He's 15 months now, and knows a lot of words and learns new ones every day, so in a way sign language isn't fully necessary for us at this time. Of course it would be useful in many situations, but now I am kind of afraid if I put all the energy into signing that his language development, which is on fire right now, could slow down.

But many mamas say it was the best thing they ever did. I have one friend who's super into it and her kids know like 200 signs. When I see them it makes me wish I had been / would be more consistent with it. Oh well!

[MadiMamacita]

We were inconsistent with signing until he was about 12 months old, when he first started repeating signs. Then it took off and he had SO many signs! He would learn a new one after seeing it just once. He was only limited by me, because I didn't know very many!

As soon as he really started talking we became more lax with the signs, and now at 30 months his vocabulary is HUGE and he doesn't really remember most of his signs.

I honestly believe that signing before he could speak taught him that he could communicate and ask for what he needed, thus saving him the frustration that leads to tantrums. At 2.5 I can count the number of large tantrums he has had on one hand. Seeing a baby sign with their caregivers is one of the coolest things ever.

[MandiKay3]

That is awesome! I came across this video on youtube.... http://youtu.be/7gSZfW4gVhI enjoy!

[MadiMamacita]

I used a lot of her videos to learn more signs. you should check in the Toddler forum or Life with a Babe- you might find more signers over there

[MandiKay3]

Originally Posted by MadiMamacita 

I used a lot of her videos to learn more signs. you should check in the Toddler forum or Life with a Babe- you might find more signers over there

Thank you I will definitely try that!

[voca]

We signed from birth, starting with the obvious "milk", "sleep" and "potty". At 25 months my daughter is talking up a storm but she still signs a lot -- she's learning to form sentences in sign, and to finger spell some, though we don't have anyone fluent in ASL so I am sure we are getting some parts wrong. Anyway, we also think, for what anecdotal evidence is worth, that it has avoided a lot of frustration and temper tantrums..

[MandiKay3]

Everyone that I talk to about it says a lot about avoiding frustration. I love that, even as an adult it is awful when you can't spit out the right words.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

I'm going to move this over to the Life with a Babe forum. Enjoy the ride!

[Buzzer Beater]

We feel sign is so worth it, a small investment of time and fun to learn, for such a huge reward! My 16 month old puts sentences together on her own, and it's nice knowing what she wants or need. Help more cheese was the first thing she put together on her own. She learns a sign in about 5 minutes now. We've tailored some signs that are diffucult to form to make it easier for her to use.

[tekcez]

Of course it would be useful in many situations, but now I am kind of afraid if I put all the energy into signing that his language development, which is on fire right now, could slow down.

fwiw that will not happen with a child who is meeting language milestones according to a typical developmental pattern.  think of sign as adding extra modalities (visual and tactile) to spoken language.  it helps to create rich word knowledge really does support spoken language development.  i can wait until my 3.5 month old starts responding to models for signing.