Signing for babies - advice anyone?

[Hattiecat]

I am wondering whether to enrol me and baby onto baby signing courses (although one problem is locality - I'm in Congleton in Cheshire and there doesn't appear to be anything that local at times that I can do). Does anyone out there have any experience of signing with babies - is it worthwhile? - my baby is just over 6 months old and I'm wondering whether she will realistically be able to pick up anything meaningful. Also, anyone used the sign and sing dvd - am wondering whether just to invest in that? Sorry its long winded!!!!!

You could do some signing at home with your DD. Use some well established signs or make up your own. Key is to be consistent and (same signs) and do them all the time. It can take a few months before they start signing back as they need to have the hand coordination for it, besides the understanding.

I haven't been to signing classes but it sounds like the ones nearest you can be a hassle to get to so I personally wouldn't bother with the classes.

Hi Hattiecat - might be worth a look in the archives as pretty sure there have been lots of threads on this in the recent past.

I am taking my DD to signing classes - she's only 17weeks old so bit early to say whether it's working or not! You do have to be quite committed in doing the signs if you want her to pick them up. The only one I (nearly) always remember is for nappy change.

The classes are fun though - lots of singing, the babies get to look at one another which they seem to enjoy, and you might make some new friends too, so worth going in my opinion. :)

Cantsleepwontsleep is right - there have been a fair few of these threads, so worth having a dig. We did signing with my 2 - just bought a video and book and did those. They say it's good to start around 6 months, but don't expect any signs back until at least 10 months (I think). Ours didn't do anything till at least 12 months. I'd definitely recommend it. We didn't do huge amounts of signs - sleep, milk, more, drink, food, nappy change, please, (DS is now 2.5 and talking really well but still automatically does the sign for please when he's prompted to ask for something nicely), thank you, plane, err can't think of anything else, but there may have been some. Oh yes, hot and cold. And later on 'toilet' for DD (DS hasn't reached that stage yet) It helped that their nursery did it too. DH and I still use some of the signs if one of us is outside in the garden and we want something. HTH.

excellent - thanks you guys for all that - i ahd really bad pnd with my first and one of the reasons i think was that she became hugely obnoxious when she couldn't make herself understood so am keen that this won't happen again with dd2 who so far is an absolute little poppet . cool i shall try it! many thanks!

Hattie, I used \link{http://www.babysigners.co.uk/i2.php\this} with ds on the recommendation of someone on MN. I think it's a good idea, although despite me flapping my arms like I was trying to take off, ds never learnt any signs. However, I used to say the word while flapping, and now ds appears to be able to say "milk" whenever he wants any form of food, so some of it must have sunk in!

\link{http://www.tinytalk.co.uk/baby-signing-find.htm\click on whereever u live and hope u can find a class}

we do baby signing with 1yo ds. dh is a sahd - i bought him the sing and sign dvd to try but he didn't really get on with it - iirc they don't really demonstrate the signs, just use them in the songs - so you might need a book or something to go with it? (if you do decide to invest, we have one we could do you a deal on!) :)

dh takes ds to a weekly class, which he (dh) enjoys - but if you're the sort of person who can learn stuff from a dvd (he isn't), i'm sure that would work just as well (since it's mainly about you learning the signs!)

we mainly do food time related signs - trying to keep to just a few till he picks them up. so far he has two signs (have been doing this for about 4 months). if you sign "all done", he'll clap if he is finished. and he has another sign which looks vaguely like "more" - but we're not quite sure what it means! but he always looks really pleased with himself when he does either sign :)

Cheers for that - darn cornflakegirl - 10 minutes b4 you posted i bought the dvd - fingers crossed i may get some joy out of it. this time round i'm kind of of the opinion that anything's worth a go once...here's to much flapping of arms!!!! dh and dd1 will surely think i've completely lost it - and as for poor dd2 - she's no chance!!!

A good resource for signing books is at Forest Books (also online). It's mainly "serious" stuff for hearing impairment, but has a few children's basic sign books as well.

We've been trying a few signs with DS - he's 14 months and is picking things up really fast (he talks lots too)

We started out making our own signs up - it doesn't matter what the signs are as long as you're consistant. Started running out of ideas though so got the Joseph Garcia Sign With your Baby book and video out of the library this week. Nice and cheap way to do it!! Hope it goes well for you

My ds is 8 months and I started signing with him about 8 weeks ago. I bought the Sing and Sign vocab book. I think it cost a tenner and it has around 200 signs in it. I wanted to learn some more and have been to this site to get the standard british sign language signs for some of the words that I wanted. Ds has just started to do the "milk" sign whilst feeding and I am excited at the prospect of him doing more.

Child's Play do a book of 50 everyday signs, its a great resource.

Chelltune

I've used a couple of signs- (up and noise) since birth, added more at around 6m/o to do with food/milk and more again about 7m/o etc. hes now 8m/o and signing milk for EVERYTHING , seems to understnad that noise sign is a warning of noise coming so doesn;t freak out any more at toilet flushes, occasioanly signs up and looks to be picked up if you sign it to him and smiles at good boy.
BUT dh and I both sign with him a lot, BSL is our 2nd language... its not something your baby will pick up quickly from you signing occasionaly. DVDs can be good IF you use them as a learning tool for yourself, ditto books tho book alone is hard as you don;t see how a sign moves. You could try a BSL class in the evening for a fuller sign learning experience but it won't be baby orientated.
Is it worth it... I hope so, but ds is too young for me to have personal opinion on that. friends recon their child has been less frustrated and certainly she was an early talker.

My ds & I sign and have never taken classes. I started when he was about 6 months & it took him until almost 12 months to sign back to me. I haven't been as consistent as I would have liked - I think if I'd signed more frequently, he'd do more but at 13 months, he can sign:

help, more, eat, milk (but the US version), finished/ all done, bath & light

He also sometimes uses the milk sign to mean 'I want' or 'give me...'

Now we're learning body parts, clothes, different foods & animals.

There are 2 online resources that I think are great. Both have short video clips showing you how to do the signs:

Cbeebies Something Special

UCL Early BSL (This has tons of signs & is a really useful resource)

Hope this helps

I also used the ASL sign for milk as it was so much easier than the BSL sign for little hands.

We got into signing from something special. My D's took to it quite well from the age of 1.5 - 2. They call it Mr Tumble language. It prompted dH and I to do a free night course Intro to Sign Language.
I thing sign language is far more important than the other languages taught at school. I have met far more deaf people on the street than French, German or Spanish ( but I do love in Bolton).
I find it useful with the kids if we are in somewhere noisy like sof play. I can ask them if they want biscuit and juice or just tell them to get off another kids neck without causing attention to us.
H and I can also swear at each other in front of the kids, although we always end up laughing!!