Heavenly Homemakers

If you missed Katie’s previous post about Baby Signs, make sure you go read it here!
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If your baby waves bye-bye, lifts their arms to be picked up or shakes their head, they’re doing baby signs. If you can sing Itsy Bitsy Spider with the hand motions, you are ready to teach your child baby signs. And you thought it might be difficult!

How to Teach Baby Signs

First, remember that you can just make them up if you’d like, using simple motions that baby can imitate. This is not rocket science. The end goal is simply to be able to understand each other. Just like “Bah-ka” might be one baby’s “blankie”, another’s “Binky” and the neighbor’s dog “Barkley” to a third, but each parent knows exactly what their child is saying, you too will learn the nuances of your baby’s sign language.

Baby Signs Resources

I learned most of our vocabulary from a few books I got from the library, this ASL website and a baby sign website, and many from the Signing Time Videos (they used to play on PBS).

But wait! Don’t get overwhelmed yet! I can hear some of you saying what I so often think about something new:  “I’d really like to do that in my household, but I just don’t have the time and energy for one more thing.” I understand, believe me. The commitment is so low on this one, you almost can’t lose. Even if you learn only 3-5 basic signs, your baby is still able to tell you 3-5 more things than he would otherwise. If you have the time to read to the end of this post, you can start baby signs today.

10 Easy Signs to Start With

Here are a few basic signs to get you started. Most babies want to talk about eating and animals (the high chair and a walk outside are perfect opportunities to practice signing!):

1. More: Touch your thumbs to your fingers on both hands and tap your fingertips together in front of you. 
   Some babies will clap their hands, tap just two fingers, or tap their fists. Whatever works to communicate is golden! 
2. Eat: Tap your fingertips on your mouth.
3. Drink: Tap one finger like a straw to your lips. 
   My daughter used to smack her face with her whole hand to say “drink”. We understood it, but I’m glad she’s refined it to the one-finger version. It seems less painful! 
4. Please: With a flat hand, rub a circle on your upper chest. 
   If she REALLY wants something, she uses both hands vigorously! 
5. All Done: Either wave both hands across your body, palms down, in front of you (like “washed the spider out” in “Itsy Bitsy Spider”), OR wave both hands back and forth, palms out, near your shoulders.
6. Banana: “Peel” one index finger with the other in a downward motion.
7. Milk:  Open and close one hand into a fist and out, like you’re milking a cow. We use this sign for nursing from day one, but you can use it for milk in a cup, too. 
   See how hard she’s trying to get me to put the camera down and nurse her? Focused face and TWO hands doing the “milk” sign… 
8. Dog: Stick your tongue out and pant like a dog. The baby can even tell you when they see a dog walking from the back seat of your vehicle with this one! 
   This was one of the first signs for both my kids, because it’s so easy, has a sound that they can imitate, and dogs are everywhere. 
9. Bird: Either flap your arms like a bird or make a little beak by your mouth with two fingers and your thumb.
10. Squirrel: Pat both palms on your cheeks, like a squirrel holding nuts in his cheeks.

You can start Baby Signs at any time. Most children are ready to repeat them back to you between 8-10 months, but just like talking, it doesn’t hurt to start early. It’s also fine to start later; a friend of mine had great success using baby signs for the first time at 14 months. I always start when the child goes into the high chair at 6 months, because that’s when I get face-to-face time, and it’s easy to remember to demonstrate the “more” sign for them.

I strongly encourage you to try baby signs with your child. It will reduce tantrums and increase the enjoyment of your children in so many ways. If you’re really lucky, you may find yourself rocking a child to sleep at one  in the morning who suddenly bolts upright at the sound of a loud hotel fan cutting out to ask you, “Why? (a sign) Fan (sign) off (spoken word)?”

Be sure to visit Katie at her blog, Kitchen Stewardship, where she offers weekly Monday Missions to help you take baby steps toward being a better steward of God’s gifts of the environment, your family’s health, your time and budget. Find healthy food information, recipes, tips and shortcuts, natural cleaning ideas and more.