It's obvious how much Baby L loves her doggy, Indigo. When I call Indigo from across the room, I make a kissy sound and pat my lap and he comes running. When she was just a few months old, Baby L started doing it too! The first time she did it I could hardly believe it! She couldn't sit up by herself, but she could make kissy sounds and pat her lap to get Indigo to come running!The kissy sound and patting was really L's first sign. Now she also makes a panting sound when she wants to tell me, "doggy." She'll be in the middle of playing with blocks and she'll look up, break into a big smile and pant, and then look around for Indigo-- brilliant!
The jury is still out on the benefits of teaching your baby to sign, but according to the research I've seen, it seems to help babies communicate and lessen frustration. No to mention, that it's a fun way to play with words, and it's SOOO cute!
In the past month or so Baby L has learned all the most important signs: "dog" "food" "cup" and "milk." What else could a girl want? I think we'll work on "book" next!
Yeah!! You can teach the signs that go with Goodnight Moon like stars, moon....Goodnight Moon is one of my favorite bed time stories for children
ReplyDeleteAs a counterpoint to this, Boo's lack of being able to learn sign (he'd only mastered two signs by 12 months of age despite us introducing many from the day he was born) lead to us and our pediatrician agreeing he had a communication delay much earlier than most children. That early catch of the communication delay lead to an early diagnosis of autism, meaning Boo is getting specialized teaching long before many other autistic kids. So while Baby Sign didn't actually help us communicate with Boo early, it helped us discover that communication was going to be an issue early, for which I'm grateful.
ReplyDeleteIncidently, the signs he learned were "more" and "finished", both highly useful for lessening frustration!
ReplyDeleteI sign, too! I know milk, more, thank you, all done, and a few others... :)
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ReplyDeleteis 4.5 months too late to start sign? been considering this for a while now but haven't really gotten in to doing it.
ReplyDeleteBaby L was probably 6 or 7 months when we started doing "real" signs.
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