How to Teach Hearing Babies Sign Language

Teach your baby sign language to help her communicate.

One of the most frustrating aspects of parenting a baby is not understanding what she wants. When your baby cries--or your toddler starts to throw a fit--you may not know whether she's hungry, tired, dirty or cold. It's only when she's older that her language becomes fluent enough to simply tell you these things. Baby sign language can bridge the gap. Teaching babies sign language enables them to communicate their feelings.

Instructions

1. Choose a few need-based signs: for example, you may want to start with "eat," "sleep" and "play" so that your baby can communicate what she wants. It's also nice to start with some family signs as well, such as "mommy" and "daddy."

2. Learn the signs yourself. Baby sign language is typically based on American Sign Language. You can learn the signs from a book or through websites that show videos of people doing the signs.

3. Show your baby the sign as you say the word and do the action. For example, when he is eating, you would sign "eat" while you give him the food and say the word. This helps your child to connect the words and the actions.

4. Repeat as often as possible. It may be quite some time before your baby begins to understand the signs. Don't give up. You should repeat the signs as often as possible, every time you do the action and say the word.

5. Watch for signs that your baby is signing. At first, his signs may not look like much. He doesn't have the same type of control over his fingers that you do. Nevertheless, you'll start to see that your baby is doing signs himself. Act excited to encourage him to continue.

Tips & Warnings

• Though you shouldn't expect your baby to start signing back until she's at least nine months old, you can start signing with your baby from birth. This will expose her to the signs and she may well understand them long before she's able to sign back. You can still use the signs to communicate. For example, if she's acting cranky, you could make the sign for milk to see if she wants some milk--she may smile or get excited if that's what she really wants.

References

• The Parent Site: Extraordinary Benefits Result when you Teach Sign Language To Your Hearing Baby
• Babies and Sign Language: Sign Language for Toddlers