Baby sign language

flippy1234

I've been signing "milk" to LO for the past couple months, just wondering when she will get it and start to sign back? She is 6 months old now. Also, should I be introducing other signs now? Or wait until she is a bit older.. thanks!

3003girl

interested in responses...

BrideInLondon

DD was about 7 months old when she started signing milk. We started with milk, more, and toilet (for diaper changes), and bath.

More she didn't get until about 9 or 10 months.

Now (16 months) she signs all kinds of things. She'll usually say them at the same time, but it's a life saver when we can't quite understand what she's saying. Two that have been helpful at this age are hurt (she says oush when she signs it) and help.

Allie30

what signing books/resources do y'all recommend?

robyn2201

I got the weekly baby development email from Babycenter just the other day and it said you could start introducing sign language. I think it may be the 6 1/2 month one. We are started with milk, more, and all done.

bugsmami

Milk was one of DS's later signs.. even though it was the first one we used/one we used most often. He actually started signing it around 9 mo. https://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi is a good site. I've learned most of the signs we use off of there. We started signing at around 4 mo (just to get in the habit mostly), and DS signed his first sign around 8 mo. I didn't think he was ever going to sign back, now he signs all the time!

notreallyirish

I have sort of tried to teach DS milk, but I'm not really sure if he does it or not. It is basically the same as his sign for Mama...although Mama and milk are closely related, LOL. Sometimes he says Mama when he does the fist pump, but then sometimes he does it while he is nursing. He just likes to open and close his hand in general. Bye bye is pretty much the same too.

His first, clearest and most consistent sign is all done...he did it right at 9 months after I had been doing it for a couple weeks or so.  I find it funny and amazing, though, that the first time he signed he pretty much said the words too.  I was floored.  I mean, it wasn't very clear--he said "ah duh"--but it was awesome!

EmmieB

it's like talking. every baby is different. Baz signs when he feels like it.

We LOVE Signing Time. https://www.signingtime.com/

WyoGal

M was/is on the later end of talking and was a bit on the later end of signing.  Some LOs pick them up around 6-7 mos but M didn't really until 10-11 mos.  For M, he had so many other "signs" for when he wanted to nurse we didn't need the actual milk sign.  He wasn't really interested in signing until he figured out "all done" meant out of his high chair and "more" meant, well, more :-) 

Jennicap

We started signing around 3/4 months. we do milk, play, bath, thank you, mama, daddy, more, eat, and help (maybe a few more I can't think of). I just incorporate them into our day to day life. DS has been waving bye-bye for a few weeks though he's just starting to grasp the opening and closing of the hands but he doesn't always do it (like not always on command) and he also signs milk (very similar signs) but again he doesn't always do it and mostly does it when he's nursing.

ETA: he signs all done, that was his first sign around 9ish months and I do dirty for dirty diaper

Lilrdmandy

I've heard the best thing is to start with 4 signs, eat, more, milk and all done.  You can start as early as you want, but babies usually don't pick up on it until 8 months or so.  They will understand the signs before they actually start doing them back.  Also know that your LO may pick up the sign very differently than you are doing it.  DS does quite a few now, but he didn't really start doing them until he was about a year old.  I wasn't as consistent with them either though.

Married2MrWright

We've been signing "milk" and other signs to our LO since she was 5 weeks old and she just started signing back to us in the past few weeks (she's just over 1 now)...and does it all the time now.