We love baby signing
Of all of the parenting choices we’ve made in the past year and a half, baby signing has definitely been one of the best. Sebastian is naturally pretty laid back, but being able to communicate his needs with signs makes him even more chill. We started signing “milkies” to Sebastian consistently around four months, although he didn’t start signing it back until 10 months. The first time he signed was in the car, strapped into his car seat and crying. I was so excited! Just being able to say, “Oh, you want milkies – You can have some soon” was reassuring, even if his needs couldn’t be met immediately.
We added more and more signs, many of which evolve over time. Sebastian’s sign for “food” used to be bringing fingers to his mouth. It kind of looked like he was smoking a joint, which made me laugh. Now he brings a closed fist up to his chin instead. Probably the most useful sign he does is “potty,” which is just patting his diaper (the ASL sign for toilet is harder) but gets the idea across. (Too often “potty” now translates to “I want to go play with stuff in the bathroom,” but that’s beside the point.)
Above, signing for “bird”
More ‘fun’ signs include those for animals, which are mostly big arm motions, some with sound effects added. He also signs for “piano”, “drums”, “flag”, “phone”, “hat”, and many more that are slipping my mind right now. It is great when he can express exactly what he is excited about seeing. Most of his signs go with pictures from various books, and he quickly makes the connection to the real life items.
I highly recommend introducing signing to your baby or toddler. It doesn’t have to be intimidating and you definitely don’t have to do American Sign Language. I have picked up some Baby Sign Language here but most of our signs are made up spur of the moment. Signing can definitely cut down on your baby’s frustration and studies show that it actually encourages verbal speech to happen faster, not the other way around.
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That picture of Sebastian is awesome! We loved signing, too, and it has been a bit sad recently to discover that Annabelle has forgotten most of what she knew now that her verbal skills are strong. It’s so much fun, and neat to have your own way to communicate that others aren’t necessarily in on.
That’s awesome that Sebastian is picking it up so well!! We sign with Holden and at 8 months he started signing for milk, but then he stopped and hasn’t done it in a couple months. We’re staying with it, hopefully he’ll pick it up again!
Stick with it. We signed “milk” every time Sebastian nursed for months and one day it just clicked. Same with spoken words, he will start a sign and then drop it for awhile and sometimes drop it or sometimes come back to it (He stopped signing for milk when he could grab my shirt/boob instead, but I would request that he “ask nicely” and now he signs again). That first sign was so exciting!
I am a huge fan of signing too. For ages the only sign my son used was milk, but now he is going crazy and learning every sign I teach him, and making up his own. I love it! He is 14 months.
Yes, I love it when he makes up his own signs! Usually he mimics the motion something makes and other times he picks up on the silly hand motions I do when reading to him. 14 months is about when his signing blew up too.