Positive baby signing stories here please :-)!!

[bobsmum]

I'm helping out at a friend's parenting class on Monday (hello if you're a MNetter and haven't let on )
As I've signed with both ds and ss she asked if I would come along and talk for 30-40 mins about communicating and signing with your child.

I've got a few ideas/songs etc, but would love to add in some great anecdotes from others too.

Like what age did your dc sign? What were their favourites/most commonly used signs? Did they go on to be confident talkers ( I think most signers do).

Any tips for chatting/communicating with your dcs generally. Or silly songs that went down well? That sort of thing

Please help me make this talk really worthwhile for mums who may never have heard of baby signing and might just need some extra encouragement to chat with their children.

Any more signers or folks with silly invented songs?

Some more baby signing sites
sign and sing
talk to your baby
signing baby
UK baby signing
that might interest people

We didnt go to any classes. Just used the Sing and Sign DVD.

Started when DS2 was 8 months. He did his first sign at 11 months.

He is now 22 months. His speech is good and he is now starting to drop the signing - bit sad really cos it looks really cute when he signs

He loves "I can sing a rainbow" and "I hear thunder"

Dh and i both have BSL as our 2nd language. Have been signing some words with boy from about 5m/o. he started using "milk" for I want a drink/ food/ mummy at 8m/o and now at 11m/o uses "milk" , "more" and "finished". shakes head for no, waves hello and bye, points to things he wants and understands "no/stop" & "come here" but doesn't always comply with them.He understands "where" when we use it in a game but doesn't use it himself often.

We havn;t used songs as a teaching medium for the boy, just useing the signs a lot while also saying the words. I love seeing his mind working when hes cuddled up having a breast feed and I can see his hand going "milk milk"
while hes having his drink.
I have the Garcia book as a reference dictonary of relevent signs as my BSL is a bit rusty.

These are all great!! Unisarah - dd still signs "milk" to herself when she's b/f at bedtime - she's 20 months and signs and says "more mulch" with such enthusiasm that I'm finding it difficult to say no

I wouldn't worry about teaching British sign language, the vocabulary a child could do is so basic that he will start talking (and droping the signs ) before you can teach more floritures.

However, if the child is in an environment where is constantly submerged in signing (as when there is another person at home that only communicates by signing), then do.

I got the Joseph Garcia book from Amazon and it was not really expensive, the videos were but I didn't get them.

We sign with DS who is 16 months. We reliably get milk, yes, bye no, and juice. We are working on more signs and I get very excited when he starts to use a new sign. He can only say mum, da, ba (bye) and ta (please and thankyou) at the moment so signs are really useful.

When i say we use BSL I mean we use BSL signs not made up or american ones. Most british baby sign teachers use BSL signs. BSL as a language is MUCH more complex than most hearing baby signing parents will want to learn, they just want some vocabulary. BSL has a grammer that is VERY differnt to english, and some very strong regional accents. If being technical I surpose Dh and i use SSE ( signs suporting english) and thats what most baby signers use with out knowing the name.

Just for fun- DH and I both have North Yorkshire BSL accents, when I did go to a sing and sign group for a little while I had to explain why I signed one or two words differntly to the teacher, just our different accents. Simpler for her to ignore that than me to get DH to "talk" southwestern after all these years.

Just to say a big thank you everyone - my talk went really well and we even managed a song at the end! The group enjoyed it and may incorporate some more singing with signs into more of their meetings!

DeputyMacDawg, you missed this one off your list.