Baby Sign Language

Darian “i love you”

We started using American Sign Language as we talk to Darian. It’s been so fun to learn all the signs for his daily routines and things around the house. We’re using this book to get us started. It’s really easy, and I’m really excited. The author shared how when she was changing her baby’s diaper, the baby started signing for “doggy” by sticking her tongue out and panting. The mom signed and expressed that she was changing her diaper, but her daughter kept panting and pointed her finger. Her mom turned and saw her stuffed animal doggy across the room. She brought it to her daughter, and the baby was so happy. The mom was too because she never would have known that her daughter wanted her stuffed animal if she didn’t know sign language. It was a glimpse into her daughter’s world. I want to know what Darian is thinking! That would be so amazing to know what he thinks is cool or what attracts him. It’d also nice to know what he wants instead of him crying or trying to figure out all of his different cries and coos!

I don’t know when people usually start signing to their babies. Many websites have different start times, but I don’t know where they get these numbers from. Did they survey a bunch of mothers? Is there research that shows when the best time to start is? They don’t say. I’m not waiting to talk to Darian until I think he’s old enough to talk back, so why wait to start signing? Even if he doesn’t start signing until 6 months, there’s nothing wrong with starting at two months. I’ll just know a lot of sings by the time he wants to know how to sign everything he sees!

Benefits of Using Sign Language for Babies

• Babies are less frustrated as they get older. They can ask for what they need or want. (With less tantrums, parents are less frustrated too!)
• By communicating sooner, babies then usually learn to talk sooner.
• Their vocabularies grow a lot faster because they already have a head start.
• You get to find out what they’re thinking and get a glimpse into their world.

Process

• Introducing: sign what you’re doing when you’re doing it.
• Catching on: baby’s eyes light up when you do a certain sign.
• Communicating: baby starts signing and gets what he wants.
• Confusion: baby starts doing the same sign for everything.
• Catching on again: baby starts doing the right signs.
• Stopping: baby stops signing as he focuses on accomplishing a motor skill but starts right up again when he’s got it. 🙂
• On fire: baby starts asking for the signs for everything!

ASL for Babies 
We decided to do ASL because we don’t dumb down our speech just because Darian can only goo and gaa. At first, he’ll only do approximations, which we’ll have to figure out, but as he fine tunes his motor skills, he’ll get better and better. We just have to keep signing! I’ve always wanted to learn ASL, so I’m having a great time learning everything I have time to learn.

Where Darian’s At
So the next day, after I started reading the baby sign language book, I saw Darian doing something funny with his hands. The author talked about looking for signs your baby might already use. I kept watching him as he looked at me while he did something uncommon with his hands. Then it hit me–the itsy bitsy spider! I have sung that song to him a couple times a day since we brought him home. He was trying to make the spider climb up! How do I know? I started signing the song with him. When I did the spider, he did his approximation of the spider. When the rain came down, he moved his hands downward. When the sun came up, he put his hands together and moved them up. And when the spider went up again, his spider starting climbing again. I was sooooo excited. He’s signed the song with me two other times after that. But I see him doing his spider when he wants me to sing and play with him. He gets really happy. 🙂

We’ve been working really hard at teaching him the sign “change,” which we use when changing his diaper. He hates when his diaper is wet and gets really upset about it because to him no one understood that there is pee all over his little booty.. We’d really like him to have this one down in a couple months. I recently started noticing him doing something new when he has a wet diaper. He likes to left his legs up, and it looks like he’s pretending we are changing his diaper. Any sign helps! So I was really happy when I caught on. I could get to him before he starting screaming.  Sometimes it’s the end of the world to him when his diapers wet. We just laugh and smile while we tell him which animal is on his next diaper. It’s a bit comedic because he’s screaming his lungs out. When that wet diaper is off his skin, it’s alllllll smiles.

Two mornings ago, he started cooing and used the sign “change. It’s kind of an awkward position because both your elbows stick straight out, and you rotate your hands. I was amazed when I saw him put his arms in this position for the first time. His diaper was wet, and he didn’t get fussy at all. He didn’t do it again until today, and he did it a lot. Of course he wasn’t wet every time. But I picked him up and put him on the changing table. I looked at his diaper and told him it wasn’t wet. Then I put him back down each time. Maybe he’ll catch on in a couple weeks… Who knows! I’m just having fun using a sign while saying a sentence. It’s really fun. I’m not sure why. But it is.