Baby Talk

Let me just sing the praises of using baby sign language for a minute. We decided to teach/use it with our daughter, Ivy, and started when she was about 5 or 6 months. We hadn't used it with any of our other kids, but thought we'd give it a try and see if she would actually use it to communicate with us until she actually starts talking. Well, let me just tell ya, it's great! Now, we didn't go all out, using all the signs, but the ones we used and taught her, she uses all the time. Signs she uses the most are eat(that's a biggie), more, down, diaper, and sleep. She hasn't quite conquered the sign for "cookie," but she tries so hard. I LOVE that she's able to tell us what she needs, for the most part, even though she can't say those words yet! Some of the signs that Ivy doesn't use, she still understands, like, stop, come, and quiet. She does get a little carried away using the sign for "more" and I have to cut off the flow of goldfish. ;) However, our little Ivy is starting to spit out a few words these days and understands our words more. I did research on this before we started and used the American Sign Language for babies on the ASL website and a book a friend gave me as a gift after learning we were using it with Ivy. The book is Baby Sign Language, A Practical Guide to Signing with your Baby by Alison Mackonochie. I'm sure their are many books out there to choose from, though. Both of these resources have been so helpful. Overall, I have been very, very pleased with my experience and would recommend it to anyone.