Baby Signing - Has anyone taught their baby to sign?

[RGPargy]

I am very interested in teaching my baby some basic and simple signs to help us communicate. Has anyone done this before? If so, what is a good age to start teaching them and do you have any links to sites we could learn from? Is it necessary to go to the classes or will books/internet do the job just as well?

Hi - I teach Sing and Sign classes and can confirm that signing doesn't delay speech as long as you follow the golden rule of never signing in silence.

I learnt baby signing with my youngest daughter (nearly 3 now) and by 18mths she had over 200 (verbal) words and is now an extremely clear and confident speaker with a very large vocabulary.

You don't need to go to classes (although if you can classes are great fun and a good way to meet other mums) - our DVD is a great way to learn at home.

As llareggub says though, you do need to be committed to it if you want to get results - consistency is the key.

Hi,

We taught DS to sign as dh is hard of hearing and we use it at home anyway. DS is really chatty as well though so I don't think it's had a negative impact on his speech. We found that taking ds to deaf clubs was useful as he mixed with other children and learned a lot from them but if you're not a signer yourself then that might be a bit difficult.