Has anyone attended baby signing lessons?

[Hopeysgirlwasntbig]

If so, what did you think/how'd you get on?

I'm thinking of taking my DD when she's 7 months.

Yes, we go to sing and sign - me and DS both really enjoy them and have met some lovely other mums. We started when DS was about 6 months and still go now (he's 18 months). You need to use the signs a lot at home to help them to pick them up. I don't use them as much as I should so DS only uses certain ones, but I'm convinced it has helped his speech - I can have 'proper' conversations with him now using a combination of talking and signing.

(god, I sound like a saleswoman don't I?!) I just find the classes so much better than any other baby classes we did.

Hi - I took DD to 'Sing & Sign' when she was about 9-10 months. It was OK, and she started to use the sign for 'milk' (useful even now at 14 months) and 'duck' (not so useful...) In these classes I did get irritated by the constant reminders of all the stuff you can buy from them, although the teacher was great in herself. It's much more about teaching the parents than the children, and you have to keep it up consistently at home - it takes a good while before the baby uses the signs themselves (or maybe I just started too young?) However, at nursery DD has been taught the signs for please and thank you which is fantastic as she uses them at home - it's heartmelting! I think I will start making the effort with signs again as she is getting frustrated more often these days about not being able to communicate what she wants.

thanks very much iwouldgoouttonight.

I can't help but think of the film Meet the Fockers!! The baby was signing in that film.

We go to a weekly singing group which dd1 - now 6 - aboslutely must attend in the holidays! dd1 started going at 6months and dd2 was more or less born into it. there is no signing (not for us but understand some people find it useful). It has been great both my dds have a great vocabulary and singing is supposed to help the synapses in the brain regarding speech development. But at the end of the day it is fun and I enjoy it and will be sad to give it up when dd2 starts school in September

DS and I went to Tiny Talk classes from about 9m until 2 yrs. We both enjoyed it although he spend a lot of time running around with another lad rather than sign!
He picked up enough to be able to sign 'more to eat' before he could talk so it was useful too.
And a chance for me to meet other mums and chat!

We went, they were good. And I think it saved a lot of frustration on both our parts at times. She also learnt to say the words she signed really quickly (milk, drink, food, more, finished, tired, hurt).

HAve been using sign with boy from tiny and he still uses sign for some things he can;t say yet. Hes been signing increasing ly from about 8 months, speaking more and more now hes nearly 2 but still signing for clarity or speed*.
did go to sing and sign, was Ok, didn;t feel the need to buy any of their dvds but did borrow from a friend to see what they were like( not enough tractors). Didn;t come away from it with life long friendships but didn;t hate it either.
7 month seems a an OK age to start, it can take a while of you useing sign pretty consistantly before you see any sign back from a baby, so don;t expect instant communication. If you live with a partner or someone else is very involved in your childcare its worth trying to get them signing too so the child gets sign from both their special grown ups.
I recon its worth doing,

• ist quicker /easier to sign cake than say it!

Fab. Thank you so much ladies

Do it, do it, do it!!!

Signed with both of mine (now 5 and 2.3) and loved it. Being able to communicate before they can talk has been a fascinating insight into their world - I can remember at about 13 mths DD was still being breastfed. One early morning feed she signed "bird" at me, took me a while to work out she was listening to the dawn chorus

Think we started at about 7mths with DD and she signed back at about 10mths. She talked early and gradually the signs stopped as she could get her point across in spoken words. DS talked much later and had an amazing signing vocabulary (over 100 words!) Quite sad to see the signs go now.

We did one term of classes which we enjoyed but I got more from the internet/books so we went to Tumble Tots instead!

We went to sign and sing when DS was about 6mths old. In hindsight he was probably too young and I wasn't that dilligent about doing the signs out of the classes. The teacher was lovely though and it was a really nice class and I learnt a bit of sign language which can only be a good thing.

We bought the DVD as well, very useful to plonk DS in front of TV for educational viewing, although lady doing it slightly too enthusiastic for my liking.

Definitely worth going.

We took dd now 3 to sing and sign at eight months, originally just for me and dd to have time together. dp and dsd came along the first time and just kept going. dp EXTREMELY cynical at first now a convert as it removed so much frustration from dd not being able to express herself before talking.

And good songs, especially the 'change your nappy' one which was sung at every nappy change

dd still requests 'baby sign' cd in the car, now a great fan of Something Special and Mister Tumble (aka Justin Fletcher).

I do also wonder if it has helped DD this year in Reception as all the Phonics have a sign with them as well as a sound. She has breezed through them, possibly because having a sign to go with something isn't an alien concept but she may just have got them anyway!

GirlySquare - it's great when the cynics are converted isn't it?

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Does anyone know of any good websites (where you don't have to buy anything) showing some of the signs?

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fab, didn't think of that!

You can see some of the signs on the Something Special part of the Cbeebies website.

We've never been to a class, but DS is addicted to Something Special (Tumble Tumble !), and signs loads and loads. He's teaching everyone at nursery as they are fascinated by it.

I used to use this BSL site when we got stuck though often made them up as well!