Fall is right around the corner and many pre-verbal little ones are about to begin a new phase in their life and for the first time attend daycare. If you are heading back to work and your baby or toddler is about to begin daycare or Montessori with none or very limited verbal skills consider teaching him the following baby signs:

Help

All Done

Hungry

Hurt

Water

If the needs and preferences of your little one are slightly different let us know in the comments. We would love to compare notes and find out which signs you feel are indispensable as your little one heads to daycare. Also consider giving your daycare provider a baby sign language wall chart

I frequently get questions from moms struggling with the pace of learning of their little ones. First-time moms are generally the ones most likely to reach out with concerns hoping that somewhere, somehow there is a by-the-book answer that tells us down to the minute when our babies will reach every single milestone.

General guidelines are without doubt helpful when it comes to child development and we often refer to them specifically as it relates to your baby signing. We have captured statistics by polling moms and have made observations with our own babies. For example, we know that the majority of babies will sign between 6 to 12 months and some will know up to five signs before their first birthday. But what if your baby does not follow this pattern?  Don’t lose hope, all babies are in a constant process of learning and absorbing new information. Babies are processing and learning far more than we can ever imagine.  Their pace of response can vary widely but every baby is learning and as a parent your role is to continue teaching:

Continue teaching joyfully-Your baby deserves it

Continue to innovate-Try new methods of teaching to discover baby’s learning style

Continue teaching lovingly-Your primary role is to nurture, learning will fall into place in due time

Continue to have hope-Babies can sense discouragement and apathy

Stop comparing-Your baby is unique and their progress should be measured and tracked against their own daily achievements. 

You are doing well. Before you know it you will have a little walking chatterbox and you will face a completly different set of didactic challenges. Those too will be conquered in due time.

Happy Friday

We recently received this email and photo from Tamara S. Tamara follows us on Facebook and has a 13 month old baby girl named Roxana.

“Dear www.babysignlanguage.com,

I started teaching Roxana baby sign language the moment she was born. I really dear friend had given me the Deluxe Baby Sign Language Kit while I was on bed rest due to a difficult pregnancy. By the time Roxana was born my husband and I knew how to sign at least five basic signs. We signed to Roxana all the time but never had formal sessions. All of our signing was contextual. For example: I would sign milk when I was nursing her or daddy when daddy arrived home.

By the time Roxana turned six months old she appeared to recognized several signs and was starting to sign milk. Motivated by the video sign language stories I started setting time aside to teach Roxana more intentionally. We started by using models of animals using small figurines that we borrowed from our older boy. By the time Roxana turned 10 months she knew several animals. For fruits and vegetables I combined the real fruits and vegetables with plastic models I purchased at a craft store. We also taped printed flashcards for food items on our refrigerator. 

We feel a very important part of parenting is to make sure Roxana is safe and comfortable, since temperature can be a hazard associated to many things, like food, bath time and even the hot sidewalk we wanted Roxana to be able to grasp the meaning of hot and cold.  In the beginning of June we began teaching Roxana temperatures. To help her understand the difference we printed the large version flashcards and placed them under the protective glass on our dining table. Each day at meal time we would bring out two cups one with iced water and the other one with warm water. We would guide Roxana’s fingers to touch both cups at different times and would immediately follow it with the sign. We later replaced the water with frozen blueberries and warm blueberry compote. We continued to rotate the cold and warm items for a period of three weeks. By July 4th Roxana surprised us by touching her bath water and signing hot. Later in the week she tried to take an ice cube from my sweet tea and signed cold immediatly after pulling her hand from my cup!!

This method worked for us and I wanted to share it with other moms & dads. Thank you so much for helping us communicate with our baby.

Tamara “

It is very encouraging for us at babysignlanguage to receive your stories & testimonies. Thank you Tamara for such a wonderful tip!

If you want to share your story or video with us send it to [email protected]

Earlier this year we invited everyone to participate in our Summer of Signing Challenge, Jayde and Mika were the first one to accept the challenge and we were delighted to receive their video where Mika shows us a ton of wonderful baby signs for her favorite things.

You still have time to enter the Summer of Signing Challenge, while we are currently out of Premium Kits due to high demand you can purchase the Standard Baby Sign Language Kit and still qualify for a 100% refund on the price of your purchase upon submitting a qualified video.

This is their story:

“When I was pregnant with my daughter, a friend told me that her daughters were learning sign language at daycare and explained how brilliant it is that they are able to tell her when they want milk instead of water and not have a tantrum over it.
I was so amazed by the concept that I decided I would make a point of joining a class and exposing my child to sign language as soon as we could.
I researched and found a great 8 week introductory class which we attended once a week when Mika was about 8 months.
It took her until she was about 10 months to actually sign milk and from then on, she LOVES to sign and truly gets great pleasure in her needs being met & us understanding her right away.

The class we did used a bunch of the songs from Signing Time including the theme song; “It’s signing time with Alex & Leah” in fact this was the first song I’d seen her dance too! It was played at the beginning of class and I would play it for her too at home when I’d set aside time to sign with her, it’s a great introduction to “signing time.”

Mika is 16 months now and loves to point out everything she sees, the neighbours cat, birds on the wires, dogs that cross our path, the flowers she sees and butterflies that fly by.
It’s a pleasure to feed her because she signs eat if she’s hungry, let’s me know when she would like more and signs all done so I can clear her plate before any messes.
Sign language has been an absolute gift for us and I’m so thankful that we started when she was 6 months and now can sign so much to us.
Mika’s favorite signs at the moment include “outside” since she loves the outdoors and pointing out all the things she sees,
“water” she is obsessed with swimming and any body of water, especially when it comes from the sprinklers or a hose pipe and fountains. Getting dressed is also fun now since she loves to sign shoes and hat which always remind me to check we have both before we leave the house.
Grass is her latest word.
My personal favorites are her manner signs, please & thank you.
I think it’s too sweet for words to ask me for “more please” when I give her, it’s met with a “thank you” sign.
My heart melts for good manners and it’s wonderful to see her use these at the park when other kids share their snack or toys.”

We absolutely adore how Jayde has been looking forward to signing with her baby from the time she was pregnant. The last trimester is a fantastic time to get ready for your little ones by learning the basic signs.

We are also thrilled to see how Mika has progressed from communicating her needs to expressing complex sentiments such as gratitude and generosity as she engages with other little ones in play.

Thank you so much Jayde & Mika for letting us be part of your life.

The www.babysignlanguage.com Family