I was at a restaurant the other day and I saw a mom using sign language with her baby.  I asked the mom if her daughter knew many signs.  She told me she knew three: more, all done, and milk.  I asked her if she had taught her older kids sign language when they were babies and if she’d taught them more signs.  She said she had taught them sign language, but just the same three signs.  Then she said, but I don’t know why I do it, because it’s not like I can’t tell that they want more food when they try and grab it, and I know they’re all done when they push the food away.

My reply to her was, oh that’s too bad… maybe you should teach her more signs.  I was able to teach my children other food signs and when they woke up in the morning they’d tell me they wanted some bread, or a banana.  They could also tell me they were thirsty, but they wanted milk, not water.

This is just one example of how using sign language made it easier to know exactly what my children wanted.  A lot of parents I’ve talked to that haven’t gone on to teach their babies more signs just don’t see the benefit, but once they realize how much more their babies understand and are able to do with sign language, they are blown away!

Why not use sign language with your baby, it’s easy, has incredible lasting benefits, and it’s fun!

Andrea Ploehn

Tags: baby sign language, benefits of sign language, sign for all done, sign for food, Signing 4 Baby, signing for babies, teach baby sign, using sign language, why teach babies sign language

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Development, Question from parents, Signing Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.