My friend is a baby sign instructor and recently lent me some 'Baby Signing Time" DVDs. At first, DD just really liked the music. It's very catchy and will get stuck in your head lol.
It actually really helped to increase her speaking vocabulary. She now says and points out so many of the words/things from the dvds. And now after 3 weeks she is starting to do some of the signs.
It's just so dang cute to watch her chubby little fingers and wrists do the signs! Now it's time to give the dvds back so I need to buy some. They are pretty pricey :-(.
Any of you sign with LO?
Re: Do any of you do baby sign with your LO?
We used to sign when she was younger but she started speaking so early that the signs have gone by the wayside.
But I will say that it's nice from time to time to still sign "please" or "thank you" to her as a reminder to use her manners. All I have to do to get her to thank someone is just to touch my chin and she remembers.
I don't know if you need a dvd. Just look up some basic signs online and do them with her. Kids are sponges. She'll probably pick them up faster than you!
I did with DD up still about 16months...she really started to talk after that and didnt need it anymore...
I didnt push things like, mamma, or poop...I just did the basics like: all done, please, thank you, more, milk, drink, hungry; mostly ones that were needed to help her learn manners and get across what she needed.
the funny thing is though she is talking very well now, she still does the sign for please as she is saying it......I just remember the months and months of persistence it took to get her to say please...now its stuck with her
I'm excited to do it again with my second
DS is 20 months old and now uses about 40 different signs on a regular basis! Most of them he learned from the Baby Signing Time DVDs, but others we looked up online and taught him ourselves.
It's one of the best decisions that we possibly could've made. He's a late talker, so teaching him to sign has been invaluable. I can't tell you how many tantrums we've probably avoided because he can sign "milk please" or "play trains", rather than whine or cry for something. As his verbal language has developed, he has started incorporating words with signs....which also helps me identify what new word he's just learned!
I adore the DVDs and have recommended them to SO many moms!
We've been signing with Micah for a couple months now. He's just started to really pick up on the signs and sign back to us this month. I like it because it helps us know what he wants. For instance, he'll tell us "all done" when he's eating now and we'll stop feeding him rather than trying to force him to finish all the food we put on his tray.
I rented the Baby Signing Times DVD from my library for 2 weeks and we watched it several times. He loved watching the babies sign! I'm putting the DVDs on his birthday list, but if he doesn't get them we'll just continue to check them out from the library.
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I have loved ASL since I was a kid and I took a year of it in college so it was kind of surprising when I didn't sign with my DD very consistently when she was little. I was just so tired and I had postpartum and then after that I got it in my head that it was too late. At 18 months my DH only said "hi". Her pediatrician suggested sending her to a specialist if she didn't start communicating soon. That is when I started signing to her. She picked it up right away and started speaking at the same time. I haven't done any DVD's since I know a lot of signs myself. A good book is:
https://www.amazon.com/Baby-Signing-Book-Babies-Toddlers/dp/0778801632/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1314079805&sr=8-5
My DD seems to love speaking and signing at the same time. She love nursery rhymes that use hand gestures. I suggest learning a few signs and using them whenever you say that word and then learn a few more. It won't be long and your LO will be signing and talking.
I'm sorry, I have to agree with our cousin here. The use of ASL or signed english does make communication easier for most children who master it. For children who may not speak early, having those clear, defined signs for words makes their lives easier. Children have control of their hands in terms of signing, quicker and earlier then they have control of the spoken word.
For the OP, I didn't use any formal video. Around 8 months, I started using the sign for "more" during meal times. I would give DD a little bit of puffs, and when she was finished, I would say something like "Do you want 'more' puffs?" as I would move her hands in the more position. It took a few months until she mastered it. We didn't use too many signs, just the ones that were high frequency for us- please, thank you, more, cookie, finished.
Just another tidbit, having been a former early elem teacher, I remember reading a study on brain based research that sign language or any other activitiy that used the hands in a meaningful way during learning to read helped a child master new words quicker - meaning the new words made it into the long term memory at a faster rate. I used signed english w/my first graders and noticed it helped A LOT for new vocabulary!