When your baby first starts to sign there are many things that hold him or her back.  First, signing requires muscular coordination.  Second, signing requires a cognitive capacity and finally, signing requires sufficient long term memory.  Without all of these factors, your baby wont be able to sign.

When you first start teaching baby sign, your baby might be lacking in any one of these areas.  What’s holding them back might also not be entirely obvious.  However, none of this is really all that important anyway.  What is important to keep in mind is that your baby will start signing back just as soon as he is ready and this is regardless of whatever program or techniques you employ.  Once your baby has worked up the ability to control their bodies with some degree of specificity, can connect a word and it’s result and is able to store this in their mind for use, they’ll sign back.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that signing requires motivation.  Not all children are born chatty and so might not have as great an innate drive to communicate.  A baby who’s needs are met too quickly by parents will also lack the necessity to sign.  As you can see there are many different variables when it comes to signing.  In the end, it’s important not to rush or force things because it might just sour the experience for your baby and wear you out along the way putting you both off signing.  Start off slowly and build as you go.  You’ll find that signs are added more and more readily as time passes.  Eventually, you’ll be able to add signs in what seems like an instant.  This is the baby signing explosion and marks a wonderful benchmark in your signing life!

Catch your baby making a motion and find a word which it most resembles it!  This is one of the fastest ways to add a word to your baby’s vocabulary since your baby is already doing the right motion.  All they need to realize is that their motion actually means something.

In the early stages of signing, your baby might even be doing a sign properly, but you might miss it.  The same sort of technique should be employed, except this time, encourage and reward any signing attempt, even if it wasn’t a true attempt at signing by your baby.  For example, if your baby opens and closes their hand you might say “Oh, you want MILK” and “I see you want a drink of MILK!”  Next reward your baby with milk so it completes the association.

Sign cheating can work for MORE as well, and since MORE is one of the early signs that should be taught, you can easily cheat these words into your baby’s vocabulary.  Any time your baby’s hands come together, just reinforce the action by saying “Oh, I see you want MORE!” then quickly give your baby more.  I discuss more elaborate techniques to teaching the sign for MORE, but the aforementioned technique is certainly one worth using if at all possible.  The sign for EAT can also be sign cheated in the same way since it involves the hand coming to the mouth.

Sign cheating is a technique where you catch your baby making a motion that resembles a sign, then refining it and encouraging it by associating it with an actual word.  Give it a shot and see how much quicker you can get your baby to sign it on purpose!