Comments on: Baby Signs

By: Elena @The Art of Making a Baby

Elena @The Art of Making a Baby — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:43:52 +0000

You know I SWEAR I did read something to that effect, but for the life of me I can’t remember what. If you pick up the book I recommended, I am almost sure it touched on it.But my feeling is to start with a few to get them used to the concept and ideas, because once they get it and can sign back, then picking up signs is super easy.

By: Elena @The Art of Making a Baby

Elena @The Art of Making a Baby — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:38:21 +0000

I don’t think it’s weird at all! I think all babies work on something different. He’s focused less on spoken words, more on signs. Does he have a good sign vocabulary now?

By: Elena @The Art of Making a Baby

Elena @The Art of Making a Baby — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:37:05 +0000

There are two reasons that I know of why watching TV is not advisable for babies under 2. The first one is the one that everyone knows about: if you sit a baby in front of a TV, they are not getting the parental attention that they would otherwise be getting. {in my opinion, parents do what they have to. If a kid gets plenty of attention throughout the day, but then watches 20 minutes of slow moving realistic designed for kids segment while mommy gets really important stuff done- it’s no biggie)
The second reason isn’t as well known, but to me is the most important one, is that the flickering (the quick scene changes) of most videos and child and adult programming is too fast for the developing brain and can predispose them to ADHD (there’re plenty of studies on this one if you’d like to research), because their brain will expect that kin of fast pace in real life.

If you interact with the child while watching a show that is moving with real life speed (no scene changes, just camera moving), then I don’t see anything harmful in screen time. Unfortunately, pretty much EVERYTHING I’ve seen that is designed for little kids is fast moving (not sure about signing DVDs-I’ve never watched those). So what we do let her do on is obviously talk on skype since it’s full no interaction and no scene changes, read Dr Seuss books on the iphone (the pages get flipped at the same speed as a normal book as we read it) and watch real life videos of animals (also no scene changes and we try to narrate as much as we can, though sometimes we just let her watch the animals, like when we need to finish our meal and she’s done).

I did hear that baby signs DVD is excellent and babies really pick up stuff from it easily.

By: Juana

Juana — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:36:52 +0000

Quick question…I know I’ve seen pictures of Lexi on your phone/iPad/computer….that counts as screen time in the “no TV before 2″ guidelines. If you’re bending it for those things (and I’m sure it’s for Skyping/educational purposes when you do bend it), why wouldn’t you consider the educational DVDs? If you don’t have a DVD player you could play them on the computer. We pretty strictly followed the “no TV” thing with my son until he was 1, other than video chats with the grandparents out of town. After 1, I started letting him watch 10-20 minutes of TV a few times a week – all educational. Baby Sign DVDs are one of the things that we use and he LOVES them – he’s picked the signs up SO much more quickly seeing other babies sign them versus just me and his dad. And babies love watching babies!

By: Tarynkay

Tarynkay — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:24:21 +0000

That’s so funny- I had not done any reading about baby signs at all. A lot of our friends had done it, and it seemed like a good idea. I didn’t know when you were supposed to start, so we started at six months b,c we wanted him to be able to ask for more food and milk and tell us when he was done. Anyhow, we were so frustrated when it took a whole month for him to pick up on “more”! I guess we should have read up about it first. He is now nearly fifteen months and still doesn’t have any real spoken words, so it’s weird that he picked up on signs so quickly.

By: Gracie

Gracie — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:02:45 +0000

It really is remarkable how much these little kids can pick up; they really are little sponges for information! My husband started causally signing with our daughter around 7 months (very inconsistently) and by 10 months she was signing “all done” and “more” all the time – so you definitely don’t need to be hard core or start super early for your kid to pick it up! These days (our daughter’s a little over a year old) my husband will introduce a new sign and she’ll pick it up in a few days, and she’s signing little phrases like “eat more” all on her own. Not to mention the fact that she makes up her own signs all the time; a few months ago she started walking over to a chair and hit it with both hands, and that was her “sign” for nursing (since we’d always sit in a chair to nurse). The language abilities of babies really are amazing!

It’s funny about signing “light” because it’s something we never taught our daughter but she started doing it all on her own (around 10 months I think?). It turns out, she learned it in her weekly story-time class, they would sign “light” while singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!”

I’ve also read that it doesn’t delay language, and that is a common misperception. Our daughter had 3 words and maybe 5-6 signs at a year and now has about 10-12 of each a month later; when she goes through a verbal language “explosion” her signage increases as well.

By: Tara

Tara — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 05:05:16 +0000

Wow! That is so amazing!! Can’t wait to teach Adeline sign language!!

By: M

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:35:28 +0000

I have heard of some kids, not all, that substitute using sign language for using real words for awhile. That doesn’t mean they have a language delay, they are just “speaking” a different language. It’s interesting.

Also interesting to me is that my son uses tons of spoken words at home, so I was surprised when his daycare marked on his 18 month progress sheet that he was only saying 6 or so. I talked to them about it the next day, and asked them about the signing they teach him at daycare–apparently, he uses a bunch of signs at daycare. At home, he only uses one, ‘more.’ (Very occasionally, he’ll sign ‘eat.) It was just interesting to me that he chooses to “speak” one language at home and another at daycare!

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:01:44 +0000

Mysmarthands.com has in IPhone app dictionary that uses full ASL signs. I can’t wait until my daughter starts signing.

Have you read anything about only starting with 5 signs or so or can you just start using all the signs you know as long as you use them consistently. I guess I’m just wondering if one method would be more effective or efficient

By: Ludivine

Ludivine — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 23:17:27 +0000

We started signing at 5 months old and now at 10 months, Ryan is signing, sleep, milk and ball. I followed monta briant method I love the dvd where you have all the videos for each important signs. It’s not a video to watch with a kid but for you to learn signs. She also have flashcards and “songs for little hands” that covers all the activities with a booklet with lyrics and signs associated with them. So you have a bath song a potty song, tea party, where is my bear, in the morning etc.: http://www.amazon.com/Songs-For-Little-Hands-Activity/dp/1401917976/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1359578307&sr=8-5&keywords=monta+briant.