how many of you did baby signing?

I got a dvd and we've watched it a few times, but we haven't been consistent in using it. With all the talk on the boards, and all the books and videos available about signing now, I just feel like I should be doing it. Probably should have done it long ago! But then we go out and see other kiddos, and I never see them or their parents signing. Nobody in Kindermusik uses signs that I've seen. None of my friends/co-workers use signs with their kids. So I'm wondering if I'm just puting too much pressure on myself, and I just need to be okay with letting signing go. Just curious how many of you use it, and more importantly how many don't! Thanks!

 

We do sign, but the primary reason is that I have two boys who are extremely demanding and I hate not knowing what they want. Mind you the signing hasn't helped that much just yet, but they are learning signs. Hopefully they'll start using it more to let me know what they want rather than pointing out that they saw a fish. They are doing "more" consistently now but not as a request. It's usually in response to me saying "do you want more?" I certainly would not sweat doing it if you're not having any issues. I think I probably wouldn't do it if it was just Morgan (he's not quite as demanding), but Jonah seems to be the one who really catches on to things, and gets soooo frustrated when he doesn't get across what he needs. And, truthfully, once they started actually doing the signs, it was cool to see them grasp them. They often do a new sign at random. They had never signed fish, but we went to a restaurant that had an aquarium, and they signed fish without any prompting. Makes me realize that their little brains have tons of knowledge...they just don't have a way to let us know verbally.

 

Thank you for the input so far. We really don't have any problems communicating, and maybe that's why I haven't found the motivation to do signs. They can generally show us what they want with their actions. For example, when they're hungry they go to their high chairs and say 'gum' (don't know why, but that's what they say!). They have codes like that which allow us to generally know what they want. I think I feel like I should do signing not because we really need it to communicate, but just because I feel like that's what good mommies do nowadays....just another form of mommy guilt!!

I'd love more input, though. Thanks!

 

Nope not really. They learned the sign for more .. and that was about it.

 

I voted "no" but had to put 12 months as there is no option for the "no" people, so poll may be a little off

 

Yes, we're big time signing dorks! We started between 9-12 months, just with watching Signing Time. In truth, that's about all we've really done. DH and I picked up on the signs while watching it, and incorporated it into our daily life. Truthfully, no, we didn't do it all the time, and when we first started, I felt a little silly. But as they started picking up on it, it encouraged us to keep going. Now at 2.5, they know tons of signs, well over 100, we own all 13 of the original Signing Time series, and just started the second series. I would love for them to keep on going with ASL, but I haven't found any classes for children beyond "baby signing". They don't sign all the time now, just certain words, but will demonstrate the sign when asked and always do them along with the DVD's. Although Ainsley has started signing multiple words in a sentence sometimes.

 

We signed with our girls as a better way to communicate as well. They were preemies and one was lagging in languague from birth to 9 months so EI suggested it. We started around 8 months with 'more' and 'all done'....and went to about 18 months. They knew about 25 signs at one point- but used mostly 4 or 5. As they talked more- they signed less...though we still get the sign for 'please' and 'all done' now at 29 months!!

I think it helped mine communicate before they could speak and eased frustration. Otherwise I do not know if I would have done it. I had no problem doing it in public and both thier therapists (OT and PT) used sign as well as speaking at the same time.


I think it is a good tool- if you need it. If not, I would not worry about it!

KC

 

I would have liked to do signs, but didn't have any of the materials, nor a lot of free time, nor am I a very organized person. Before ever getting pregnant I had read about signs and thought it sounded like an excellent idea. Especially for bilingual families like ours. (I voted no, and in the second option chose before 6 months, because I remember reading that you can start around 4 months.)

But just so you know, or anyone else who isn't doing signs, my girls are highly articulate in their dominate language and with in the acceptable range in their weaker language. So no mommy guilt, their language skills are excellent even though I never got around to teaching them baby signs!

 

nope - never really needed to - DD is very verbal and DS has always been a master of point and grunt!

 

We use/d signs w/ our boys. They both have a speech delay and it helped us tremendously. I just learned a few signs that I thought would help us communicate. We also used baby signing time and they both loved it. They would just watch and listen but finally started signing. I think it's a good skill to have but it was helpful to us to lower the frustration level.

milk
more
drink
cracker
apple

were probably the most used.

good luck.

alicia

 

No! but I couldn't vote because your what age question.

 

I actually started with my older DD at about 9 months but we took a Kindermusik class called Sign and Sing and it was awesome and I just kept it going with my boys.

 

I said no, because you didn't have a "sort of" option.

We didn't do signs in any big way, but they did learn some at daycare and we tried to use them at home: just basic things like more, all done, and please. I know they knew several more signs than that (things like hungry, thirsty, water, baby, ball...), but I never felt much need for them -- they communicated those simple things pretty well by pointing and grunting. We never watched any DVDs or anything at home. Even just having "more" and "all done" was really useful though.

 

I started after 12 months. Max was about 2 months behind in speech. He wasn't far enough behind to qualify for therapy so the birth to 3 evaluator suggested teaching him sign to boost his interest in talking. We learned about 10-12 signs before we saw improvement in his speech.

 

We are a deaf parents to our twins, Rianna and Justin. They LOVE watching "Signing Time Vol. 1, 2, 3, and 4". We rotate our DVDs each day to keep everything consistent w/them. They know about 15 words by 15 mos old (not that they know what the word mean) but they have been pointing at a lot of things. It help them w/speech, language skill, learning new words, and signing.

Proud Mommy to Rianna and Justin (17.5 mos)

 

My girls had E/I from around six months. We started with more and progressed from there. As they got older, we found that it really helped with the frustration that comes with an inability to communicate effectively. It was nice for them to be able to ask for more to drink, say please and thank you, to say eat or hungry, etc... instead of screaming. We missed out on a lot of tantrums. I really wish this would have been the "popular" thing to do when my older two were born. It would have saved me a ton of headaches.
Annika and Natalie still sign, please, thank you, cookie, drink, more, up, sit, cat, bear, tree, eat, hug, coat, back pack, cracker, cheese, want, star and bubble on a regular basis. They do their signs in conjunction with speaking. I also baby sat for a friend whose son is a little younger than my girls (once a week). He has very little verbal abilities but has been taught signs by his regular sitter. It was a HUGE comfort to him to be able to come to our home and sign with us. He was able to "talk" to the girls and convey his needs to me. You could see his whole face just light up the first time I asked him if he wanted a cookie and signed it at the same time. (There was an incident involving another sitter that refused to sign with him at all and he threw MAJOR fits as a result.)

 

QUOTE(j&jtwins @ Mar 11 2008, 06:02 PM) [snapback]664180[/snapback]
I voted "no" but had to put 12 months as there is no option for the "no" people, so poll may be a little off


Woops! I've never done a poll before. Thanks for letting me know.

 

I voted yes and we started around 6-12 months. This was at the urging of the speech therapist. We still use the signs today. When having kids that have a hard time communicating it has been a lifesaver!

 

I have just started using some signs with my two. I plan on getting into it on a regular basis soon as they are not watching things alot more. I know that they will not sign back for awhile but they can start learning the signs. I am hoping to avoid alot of frustrations with communication later on.

My sister uses it with her daughter and it has been very useful for them

 

My kids are learning two languages, English and Spanish, and they were late talkers. I started using signing a little after 12 months; looking back, I wish I had started sooner. When I started, neither twin was talking at all (not even Mama or Dada). They picked up on the signs very quickly and that really helped with meal time. If your kids are communicating well, don't beat yourself up if you're not using signing. But I think it can help if there is a delay in talking.

thea

 

I did a lot of signing with them- when I had the boys I was actually a month away from graduating with my degree in Sign Language Interpretation/Transliterating. They still sign a lot, and it's great. I think it did help at times with communication, but really my goal is to introduce them to it so they "get" that it is a language that many people in the country use as their primary language, and hopefully someday they will want to learn it to communicate with the Deaf community.

Signing Time videos are great, my boys learned a lot of concepts from the videos, not just signs...

 

I also couldn't vote because of the second question. We never did signs either.

 

I just taught a few - the ones I thought were important. More, please, thank you and a few others that we used as needed.

My one caught on, but the other (who we found out has severe delays) didn't catch on until right before the other started to speak the majority of the time. Then he quit too

He's the one that doesn't speak well and could use signing, but he just won't do it. Frustrating! LOL

 

we started signing at 8 months.

 

We started signing with them at 10 months. It was a great way to communicate with them until they could talk. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who is willing to give it a try. We love the Signing Time! and Baby Signing Time videos. That is really all that we used and just signed to them as we were going about our day. It was great, and fun too.

 

I answered "no" mostly because we barely did it. I bought one of the books, read it, thought it was pretty cool. I started trying to teach them a few signs but the only one I really did consistently was "more." I probably did that around 8-10 months. They learned that sign, but we never really bothered with any others, and they started talking so soon after that that there just wasn't any incentive to continue signing.

 

QUOTE(j&jtwins @ Mar 11 2008, 11:02 PM) [snapback]664180[/snapback]
I voted "no" but had to put 12 months as there is no option for the "no" people, so poll may be a little off



Me too.