The Signs Your Baby Will Learn ~ Chris

Posted on September 23, 2015 by chris

The signs that your baby will eventually learn will be a combination of what you teach them coupled with their interests.  You’ve heard the expression that “you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”, right?  Well, it turns out people and babies are a lot like horses…or is that why the expression became popular!

Babies will learn to sign and say things that matter to them.  In the start they will be focused on the basic things in life such as food, mainly MILK.  Then he will move onto solid foods like BANANA and APPLE, MEAT, CARROTS and so forth.  From there your baby’s interest will expand to things that don’t matter as much to basic needs such as BIRDS, SPIDERS, DOGS and CATS.  If you catch your baby wanting at each level of interest, your baby will probably adopt the signs.  That is to say, that there needs to be a certain amount of motivation inherent in your baby before they will be motivated to adopt a sign.  Not to confuse things, but signs generally fall into two main categories which are “routine signs” and “motivating signs.”  Routine signs matter to your baby because they are things that happen many times throughout the day such as at meal times, diaper changes, and at bedtime.  Therefore a baby will pick this up because they happen so frequently in their lives.  This makes signs such as DIAPER, SLEEP, EAT and so forth are usual signs that will appear in a signing baby’s vocabulary.  Motivating signs are any other sign that your particular baby finds interesting on its own merit.  These can include DOG, CAT, CLOUD, RAINBOW, BIRD, TRUCK, DOLL and so forth.  Because your baby shows interest in these things, they want to know what they are called, or “labeled.”  The desire to sign, in this case, is born through the need to talk about them with others when they are noticed or absent.

As a signing parent, your job is to be ready at the helm to teach signs as your baby shows interest in certain things.  Should the peak window of interest pass, it will still be possible to teach a sign.  However, harbouring your baby’s enthusiasm is what will make signing happen much faster.  A motivated learner and a motivated teacher are the two key ingredients to proficient baby signing!

My son learned reached 180 signs by 20 months of age.  We did this by simply adding signs as he showed interest in various things.  Because there were two of us to help him along, adding signs quickly was easy.

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Some Reasons Not To Sign With Your Baby ~ Chris

Posted on September 21, 2015 by chris

Critics to baby sign language have advanced several reasons to avoid signing with your baby.  Often they say, my parents never taught me to sign and I turned out fine and others wills say that baby signing is a passing fad.  More aggressive dissenters will tell you that singing with your baby actually does them a disservice by delaying their verbal development.  Then again some parents will tell you that there are simply not enough hours in the day to teach signs to their baby.  And finally, some parents are flat out too lazy and too close-minded to teach baby sign.

I feel bad for these parents.  For one they are misleading themselves and second they are misleading others.  While the vast majority of the comments that come about from baby sign a pro baby sign because of its recent popularity, there are still people who remain indifferent and worse, against it.  While I have nothing against not teaching signs specifically (it’s a free world and kids have done fine without signs), but putting out false or misleading claims is something different altogether.

The truth of the matter is that signing provides and excellent way to foster a strong two-way parent-child bond through communication.  At worst, signing does not increase IQ, vocabulary or language development, as the research shows.  However, making children worse off is highly unlikely – even totally impossible.  Children soak up every bit of stimulation they can get and in many cases, the more you challenge a child, the better.  If a child is delayed in speaking, he would have been delayed regardless of having been taught to sign – and for these kids, thankfully they’ve been given an outlet, otherwise they’d suffer even more.  Signing takes no extra time in your day after you learn the basic rules to signing as well as a handful of signs to start.  From there, you might take 5-10 minutes every other day to learn a couple more signs – that’s it.  You see, at the exception of being close minded and just not wanting to, there’s really no reason not to sign with your baby.

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The Difference Between Routine Signs And Motivating Signs ~ Chris

Posted on September 16, 2015 by chris

In baby sign language, we teach that there are basically two different types of signs that apply.  They are called “routine” signs and “motivating” signs.

Routine signs are so named because they apply directly to the types of things that happen everyday such as diaper changes and getting dressed, eating and drinking and sleeping.  These are great signs to teach to your baby because you will have plenty of opportunity to teach them throughout the day.

Motivating signs are wholly different.  These signs arise whenever your baby is keenly interested in something, which is often very different from what we might expect.  Motivating signs for my son included things like TRUCKS, FANS, LIGHTS, AIRPLAINES, HATS and on and on.  Some babies might be motivated by entirely different things so to discover them, just listen carefully to your baby’s body language.

There are times too when these categories overlap.  For example, foods like MILK or BANANAS (which are often part of a routine) can often be highly motivating for a baby and DIAPER change (which is a routine sign) might be highly motivating to a baby that prefers a clean tush!  If signs overlap, you might wonder why they are even separated to begin with.  Naturally, there is a very good reason – when first teaching your baby to sign, you want to take some signs from each category.  That is, you want some from the routine column and some from the motivating column.

You might then ask why this is important, why not just teach whatever you want as you go?  Well, you want to teach routine signs because they are 1) useful to your baby 2) happen regularly throughout the day giving you lots of opportunity to rehearse them and 3) you want your baby to be able to ask for these things to meet their needs.  Motivating signs are taught to give your baby labels for the things that amuse them.  These signs are often easier for them to learn because they have a desire to “talk” about them and point them out whenever they see them helping to quickly build their vocabulary.  Motivating signs are included because they give a baby a voice so they can begin to control their environment, they can ask to see these things close up, to touch them, and to learn more about them.  Motivating signs give a baby a good foundation to their self esteem because it plays into their interests.

As you devise your list of signs to teach be sure to include a good number of signs from each category.

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Isn’t That Cute ~ Courtney

Posted on September 9, 2015 by chris

Although many people in the general public have heard of baby sign language, most folks still don’t recognize it when they see it.  The two signs that my baby uses most when out and about are MORE and THANK YOU.  People tend to think he’s clapping instead of asking for MORE.  Either way, he’s showing his appreciation, so I rarely correct them.  When he’s given something or told that he’s cute, I ask him to say THANK YOU.  Even though people hear me, they still usually believe he’s blowing them a kiss.  Again, it’s close enough!  If he wasn’t getting proper social feedback for his signs, I’d explain them, and sometimes I do anyway!

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The Real Pay-Off ~ Chris

Posted on September 2, 2015 by chris

If you are anything like us, you think the real payoff to signing is in the moment – whatever moment that happens to be.  To parents with a 10-12 month-old, a baby that can sign DIAPER, EAT, MILK and so forth is a God’s-send.  To parents with a toddler, signing means so much more, especially one who is entering the “terrible twos” at around 16-24 months when baby has a really good grasp on the flow of life and begins to come into his own element.  Suddenly, easygoing basic needs baby, turns into demanding and needy toddler who can not be so easily pleased.

This is really the time when signs take front stage.  I remember constantly having to insist that signs be used in lieu of whining.  It was as if he thought we could suddenly read his mind and that his demands could be conveyed through rudimentary forms.  We never did cave to a single demand he made while whining.  In fact, it would only prompt us to inquire further.  We’d ask him what he wanted, and then remind him to use his signs.  In fact, this became a common daily occurrence.  When he asked nicely using proper address, we were generally happy to oblige given we weren’t too busy.  If we were but were otherwise happy to assist, we’d instruct him to WAIT, by doing the sign.  Other times we’d even say “no” outright.  This was the case if his demands were inappropriate.  When we did, we always offered him a reasonable explanation.  With time, his whining diminished, but like all (almost?) toddlers it’s innate so it persisted.  We really wanted to teach our baby that whining was not a proper way to ask for things so we never rewarded it directly.  It likely comes as a big surprise (a shock?) to a lot of children that “no” is a common occurrence in life.  How many adults do you know who get everything they want?

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