There’s no lower or upper limit.  There are about 15 signs that are desperately needed to all parents to make life easier for you and your baby, so I recommend those first.  Aside from learning signs like MILK, MORE, EAT and so forth, you might want to teach signs for the things that capture your baby’s interest.  You’ll figure out what those are easily enough!  By the way, some parents get hooked on signing and teach 50-100 signs, some even more, however, other parents are happy to teach only a handful, and this is right for them.

My son was up to about 80 signs by the time he began learning words and these started just as slow as did signs.  You get one or two works here and there, this grows regularly but slowly until words are added exponentially.  There will be a time when your baby adds words so fast you have problems keeping up and this will be just around the time when your baby begins to become more verbal.  Do keep in mind though that there will be a fairly long transition from signs to speaking so signs will still play an important role in your baby’s life.  During this time, you’ll probably want to add in signs that are difficult to pronounce.

No time at all.  In fact, you shouldn’t set any time aside for signing period.  Signing is something that is done throughout your daily routine and is really no different than speaking with your baby.  Anytime you talk to your baby, you sign to them.  It’s not much more complicated that this.

Parents often think that signing is going to take a big bite out of their day, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.  In fact, once you know the various rules and techniques that are part of signing with your hearing baby and learn a few signs, there’s not much else to do but incorporate them into your routine.  Before you start to sign, learning about the various pitfalls and how to troubleshoot issues is highly advised.  You’ll also need to digest 5-10 signs and have a good sign language dictionary handy to add more signs as your baby adopts them.

What I will say though, is that signing does not require a huge ongoing time commitment once you understand how and why signing works – just add it to your daily routine!

First of all, you probably have a rough idea of what your baby wants and needs, but you don’t know exactly what he wants or needs, and you certainly can’t know it as fast or as certainly as would a signing parent.  Does your baby ask for MILK, WATER, JUICE or do they just look thirsty while grunting and pointing toward the fridge?  Get my point?

Signing is so much more specific, it leaves very little to the imagination.  It empowers a baby and brings them up to adult level.  They can contribute to the conversation, start new conversations, identify thoughts and memories they have recalled and on and on.  If a signing baby is left with a caregiver or family member and that person is taught the signs, they will be able to communicate with your baby.  They won’t need the same level of connection because ASL is a language used by more than just your baby and you.  No matter how close your connection is with your baby, there’s probably still quite a bit of guesswork involved in deciphering their intended meaning.  While signs aren’t always perfect either, and sometimes context helps figuring out signs that look similar, it requires far less work in uncovering baby’s needs and wants.  Signing has many other side benefits too such as increasing vocabulary, better emotional control, a stronger parent-child bond, more frequent shared attention throughout the day, the ability to produce a two way conversation and invent increased IQ.  So while some parents can read the silent body language of a baby and know roughly what they want and need, only a signing parent and baby can tell each other specifically, right down to the word.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about teaching a hearing baby to sign.  It’s also the one that most people just toss out willy nilly with no thought whatsoever.  I’m harsh with this, but only because I’ve heard it so often and it’s frequently motivated by negative thoughts about signing.  Think competitive parents, disapproving in-laws and the like.  As reasonable as the comment sounds at first impression, with a little bit of critical thought it’s pretty obvious that there’s no way to silence a baby.  Talking is innate and only very severe traumatic events can produce mute child.  This is a nasty thought, but it sure helps enlighten a naysayer.  Far from traumatic, signing is an excellent way to connect with your baby in a constructive and loving way.

Sign language doesn’t inhibit speech development in any way.  Think of signing like crawling on the way to walking, except in this case, it’s on the way to talking.  Your baby is going to drop signing as soon as they are no longer useful.  There will be a period where your baby uses both sign and words at the same time, but quickly they will learn that signing has some major draw backs like it only works face to face and that it’s hard to do things with busy hands and sign at the same time.