I love this stage of baby signing. My son is in the signing burst stage of baby signing… he can’t get enough. He’s at the point now that when I introduce a sign he can almost immediately reproduce it. He understands that I am teaching him a gesture that will represent something, so when I start signing, he watches and waits to see what I’m saying. Watch this video of Ben signing, he just turned 13 months this week.

My little 11 month old got a few of his signs mixed up… which happens, you just have to connect the reasons why this happens sometimes.  I used to nurse my son to sleep right before bed, so a lot of the time when I was about to put him in bed I would say “time to go night night” and I’d sign bed.  Without realizing it though I would go to feed him first.  Then after awhile when I would ask Ben if he was hungry he would start signing bed or night night.  At first I thought he was tired so I’d go to lay him down and he would cry and look at me like I was making a mistake.  After a few time of this happening I quickly put the pieces together and realized how I had confused him.  After that I started differentiating eat and bed and correcting his signing if he used the wrong one.  It only took a couple days and he understood the difference, and that was at 11 months old.  I can’t believe how observant they are!

So if you’ve noticed your little one has gotten a sign mixed up make sure to differentiate between your signs and then correct your little one by showing them the correct sign.  If they still aren’t getting it, try to be more consistent and even take there hands and physically show them the sign you want them to do.  When I’m teaching my son signs for the first time for a few days I while take his hands and help him mimic the sign correctly, it helps them to feel what they are visually seeing.

Good luck and have fun!

Andrea Ploehn

My 11 month old already signs back to me.  So far Ben can sign: mom, dad, eat, more, up, all done, dog, and bed.  When he starts to get a little fussy and I’m not sure if he’s hungry or tired I just ask him while signing, ” do you want to eat”, or ” are you tired, do you want to go to bed?”  And it’s amazing at 11 months old he’ll tell me.  Sometimes when I didn’t even know he was tired he’ll sign bed to me… and what do you know I put him in bed and he’s happy.  It always surprises me at how smart babies are, and most of the time the parents have no idea how much their child understands. 

I love baby sign language!!!  I hope parents with little ones don’t miss out on this, because it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done as a parent by far.

Andrea Ploehn

Here is a video of Ben my 9 month old signing up.  A lot of the time when babies start signing back the parents don’t recognize that the baby is trying to produce a sign.  If you pay attention and notice that they are attempting to copy you or tend to do the same thing over and over when you say or sign a word, then give them positive reinforcement by acknowledging their attempt and then help them by taking their hands and help them do the sign again.

Andrea Ploehn

Brandon is finally Potty trained!!!  He’ll be three in April, so I was ready for him to be done.  Ben got 4 teeth and started walking.  He’s 8 1/2 months old… and I know it doesn’t sound real, but he took 20 steps this week, I caught it on video so I’ll post it later.  I’ve started to retake pictures for a new quick reference book to go along with a new Signing 4 Baby DVD… I don’t want to be pregnant in this one!  What a great week.

I’m so excited about some new videos  we just finished filming… they’re being edited right now.  I’ve developed an amazing program that has 13 lessons in it.  I decided to put this program together so that parents don’t get overwhelmed and they know exactly what to do and when to do it.  I’ve been teaching baby sign language classes for years now and I tend to get the same questions from parents over and over.  So I took the most common questions and I’ve given you straight forward answers. 

Each lesson contains new signs to work on,  research about baby sign language, skill development tips, personal stories on how the signs worked for me, video clips of babies in the stages of signing, how to implement the new signs, and much more!

I haven’t seen anything else like this anywhere.  This is the ultimate parents guide!  I feel it’s so important for the parents to learn how to use sign language so that they are the primary influence on the babies learning experience.  If the parent isn’t giving their child added attention and interaction, then many of the benefits that are connected with baby signing don’t tend to happen.  The key is the added involvement and connection that the parent has with the child.

I know you guys are going to love this, I’ll let you know when we have everything together!

Andrea Ploehn, www.signing4baby.com

Ben started signing up at 8 months and more at 9 months old.  Here are some great video clips so that you can see some examples of the very first attempts of a baby using sign language.

A few weeks ago we were in Salt Lake City, UT and we visited a place called bouncing off the walls. It has huge inflatable toys. My kids had a blast, we were there for over two hours and they still didn’t want to leave. It was nice because I just had to watch them have a good time! Here are some fun video clips. This is just one of the rooms they have available.

Andrea Ploehn

Okay, I know I’m a little late getting this post together, well ridiculously late… but I forgot I had these videos… so here you go.  We had such a great time over Thanksgiving.  We spend time each year with my dads family and it’s pretty much turned into our family reunion.  This year we had over 90 people!  It was my parents turn to host… so we had to do something fun.  My brother came up with the idea to rent sumo suits, if you’ve never done it, you should.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  I know it’s not really a traditional Thanksgiving type thing to do, but I think people will at least remember this one.  Have fun watching some of my family members fumble around in fat suits!

This is my husband and brother-in-law.

This is me and my sister.

Andrea Burton Ploehn

This was the first day he decided to start walking… I was a little excited, he was only 8 months old!