Baby signing

[BabydollsMum]

Any successful signers out there? We're just starting to reap the benefits of months and months with no come back - DD (13mo) is now signing 'milk' and 'finished', which is brilliant. If you have experience of it, what other signs would you say are the most useful to teach them? We've been doing 'nappy' for when she needs changing, but TBH a) we can smell it anyway - we don't need to be told (!) and b) she'll probably be potty trained by the time she gets it. It'd be useful to hear some success stories/ good signs to learn now.

biscuit
more
thankyou
mummy
daddy

nursery rhymes also good
animals

I found that once the signs started, they exploded. DD suddenly began using them the day after her first birthday - I'd been signing for months. I can't remember specific useful signs but I just began teaching signs for everything which she soon did too. It fascinated me that when she began speaking (at about 16 months) her first words were what her first signs had been. She dropped each sign the moment she mastered the spoken word. Enjoy it. It's great to hear success stories.

DD still signs please and thank you at 2.6! They must have been really hammered in!

Aw! Bless them. Yeah, it's really exciting and I can see how it should accelerate now because DD is really copying me as well*

*Must stop swearing!

Thanks Hazeyjane - will look those up.

I recommend teaching:

More
Food
Drink
Sleep/bedtime
Bath

We started quite early on with DD2, and at 9 months she can do 'milk' and 'enough', and I think 'food' (but hard to tell because she has her fingers in/near her mouth so much anyway!).

We used the signs a lot with DD1 and found them really helpful. She definitely did have a sudden steep learning curve, once she had learned the first four or five. Like belindarose she also made the link quite quickly from sign to word- so her first words replaced the first signs.

I started signing with my DD at 12mo, she is now 14mo and this week suddenly started doing 3 signs: all gone, more and milk.
Ive been a bit lazy with signing to her but now she has done that this week I'm really going to make the effort to learn more signs.

It seems to be going hand in hand with her language as she's also really trying to talk at the moment!

My adD had not dropped her signs when she starts saying a word, which is good because she says so many words (and tries to say more) that signing helps us distinguish which word she is using.

Most useful:
More
Food
Drink
Sleep
Please/thank you

We also have: mummy, daddy (both the US signs for those as they are clearer), home, work, cuddle/cuddly toy, brush teeth, nappy.

Started sign with my DS at around 18 month and he's awesome with it he can sign:

Mummy
Daddy
Grandma
Granddad
Cat
Dog
Fish
Snake
Lion
Giraffe
Elephant
Rhino
Bird
Kiss
Apple
Banana
Orange
Grapes
Drink
Hungry
Sorry
Please
Sleep
Cross
Happy/ Laugh
Naughty
Good

He isn't totally fluent but uses alot while playing and attempting to chat. I found the best way was to stick with things like animals in favorite book and favorite food. It's amazing how fast he picked things up after starting so slowly! And I know no sign language when I started, I found all the signs online via Google

I loved baby signing, DD was signing loads of things by the time she was 14 mo. I think learning animals and things you see out and about is good. I loved it when DD started to sign flower, dog, cat etc and pointed them out to me when we were in the park or even just leafing through books. It makes you so much more aware of what they're observing. Mummy and Daddy are also lovely!

What's the earliest you can start and do you go to a class or do it at home ?

Looking forward to starting signing classes with dd2. Dd1 and ds both did sing and sign and the signing was great. Dd was an early talker and as others have said, the word replaced the sign. Ds was much later and I'm sure he'd have been e en more frustrated than he was had he not signed. Dd, 8 months has just started signing milk (or using the milk sign for mummy - the two concepts are interchangeable in our house!)

i have done it at home with ds with books,watching 'Something Special' and a nursery rhymes dvd from Amazon. We have done it with ds since he was about 10 months, he has developmental delays in all areas and no speech, but he does about 6 signs. Start of with a few (say 10), and use them all the time - making sure you say the word as you sign.

Artic we started at 7 months, it was about right for us as it gave time for me to learn the signs before DD started to do them herself (at about 9-10 months). She did a few for a while then at about 13 months it exploded and she started to sign loads. You have to keep it up at home though.

I agree, baby signing has really helped my DS to communicate and not get frustrated. At nearly 2 he never stops talking but still signs as he talks.

One of the most useful signs when he was smaller was hurt.

I found "where" together with other signs really useful to avoid tantrums, for example if DS couldn't find his drink or teddy.

I recommend not doing chocolate. it was very funny for about 24 hours, then not so for the following 3 months.

I bought some baby sign books (by Susan Goodwyn and Linda Acredolo) for my DD. It was great because it taught her so many signs that she could actually sign what she wanted to do. She wouldn't just sign 'book' but she'd sign 'book' and 'dog' if she wanted her dog book etc... She could sign swings, dolls, and loads more. I forget them now because she's 8 now... but she had over 100 signs at the time and then her language was really advanced when she was talking. At 2 and a bit (probably about a quarter, but certainly less than two and a half) she had over 500 words and was talking in three and four word sentences (I know because she was doing a study for a local university at the time and I had to keep an inventory!) Almost all of her early words were words that she could sign.

DD is 13 months and just has two signs - More and All Gone. We sometimes get Milk but less so recently.

She also understands Nappy, Bath, Food Drink, Bed, Please/Thank You, Pig, Dog.

She has a few words too - no, yes, doggy, daddy too.

Just checked the record I kept... DD had 587 words at 24 months. So yes, for us it was very successful .

Definitely keep it up.

I went for signs of things that she was interested in - and if we didn't know them, we'd make them up. For example, she liked to watch the washing machine go round - so we had a sign that she could ask me to put the washing machine on. She also had a favourite clock, so that was another sign. I followed her interests with the signs and I think that was the secret to our success.

this is brilliant! i was mad keen on signs but have got lazy with it. I will definitely keep going. Can anyone recommend a particular system? i mostly do makaton but sometimes two-handed signs arent v practical. Im glad to hear so many of you find it useful as none of my friends bother with it so i was a bit disheartened. :) DS is 11 mths so it seems a perfect time to pick it up again. Thanx for encouraging me!

I followed the baby signs book by by Susan Goodwyn and Linda Acredolo (you can look it up on Amazon). I prefered this system because it is designed specifically for babies, rather than being an adaptation of an existing signing system. For example, the BSL sign for aeroplane is is stick out your first and last finger, but to curl under the middle fingers. This is hard for a one year old to do. Whereas under the Goodwyn system - aeroplane is to stick out both arms! Much easier.

We did start off with a BSL based system and we also tried makaton but i found my daughter found them too difficult so we went over to this system and she just flew with it!

We've been doing a sort of mix between makaton and baby signing and ds (13 months) is doing really well. He understands and uses

more
milk
all gone
water
drink
food
eat
biscuit
clock
light
car
bus
Justin (Mr Tumble )
yes
no

I think the key is to get everyone to use it consistently around them. Definitely worth doing though