Baby Signing

[JuliaJulia]

Hi

I would like to start baby signing with my DD when she is born. I was wondering if anyone else had tried it and had any tips, and/or could recommend a good book or DVD to buy.

Thanks,

Julia.

I would try here
They are a bookshop which sells books to do with deafness! They also have baby sign books too!
I can thoroughly reccomend them!!

We used the TinyTalk pack, didn't go to classes or anything. The cards with the signs were good, but the DVD and the CD weren't really worth it.

TBH, I now mainly use an iPhone app...which although is based upon ASL...is damn handy for getting hold of new signs

My surestart centre does baby signing, maybe yours does too... It's very reasonable.

We went to the Tiny Talk classes as it was lovely to have a cuppa and a biscuit with other local mums. Also the children loved it & the interaction

I've got BSL certificate because I sign at work sometimes, so I could have taught her myself. But we did have fun at the groups.
I think it's important to just concentrate on one or two signs (important ones to baby 'milk' 'nappy' perhaps) at a time to start with, by using the sign yourself each time.
I can't remember exactly how old DD was when we started - but it was when she started being able to clap.

We did the Tiny Talk class when DS was 9mths and it was fantastic, our teacher was wonderful and the social aspect was great too. He learnt milk the first week and by concentrating on one or two signs at a time he picked it up really well. Other babies that were lots younger were much slower, after a term some had never signed, but they still loved the singing and socializing so I'm sure it was still worth it for them. I'm sure doing baby sign helped him develop his language earlier and more comprehensively than a lot of his peers.

With DS1 (now 5 1/2) we bought some lovely board books from Childs Play illustrated by Anthony Lewis (try Amazon). They are essentially lovely picture board books which you can sit down and look at with your children but they have pictures of babies doing the sign for the item in the picture - hope that makes sense! We didn't do classes as we had none close but he really took to signing.

With DS2 (now 2.3)we used the books and then did Sing & Sign classes from age 1.3 and he loved it! The social aspect of the classes is great but I do think they are pricey compared to other baby classes.

I am hoping to start classes with DD (6 months) this term so we'll see how she gets on! IMO baby signing is worth it's weight in gold no matter how you go about it. Both my boys have been early talkers and we had little in the way of tantrums earlier on in life with either. I accredit this to them being able to communicate what they wanted. It's not to say however that we haven't had the usual power struggles later on!!

Whatever you decide to do the most important thing is to actually use the signs at home whenever you use the word and do teach anyone else looking after your baby the signs too!! Good luck x

I got a book for out from the library for me to read and then some of the childs play books, watched Something Special and made some of the signs up.
We started signing at 6 months with both of our children. Just doing the sign when we said the words, trying to make sure they were looking at us.
Echo the lack of early tantrums with both dc as they could communicate much better and they flowed from signing to speaking so easily. It did not hinder their speech development at all.
Why don't more people do it?

We went to Sing & Sign classes for two terms, but maybe started too early, as my LO picked up nothing, except perhaps the sign for milk.