Signing with Baby

When my kids were little babies, we taught them American Sign Language.

This was before Meet the Fockers and baby signing was still a relatively new idea. I know that there were people in my family who thought we were nuts. But once my oldest made our lives immensely easier by signing milk, more, and all done at four-months-old, those family members changed their minds. They thought we were geniuses.

Or most of them did anyway. Some of them still thought we were new-age, hippy, parenting freaks.

I will always be thankful to our good friends Jim and Melanie and their first daughter Hannah for introducing us to the idea of signing with our baby. We met Jim and Melanie during aviation training when we were trying to start our own family. We were then lucky enough to be stationed at the same base out of training. The more time we spent with our wonderful friends, the more we knew what kind of parents we wanted to be.

Signing certainly is a great way to communicate with your baby. An infant really does know when she is hungry, thirsty or full. Before long our kids were also signing when they needed a diaper change and when they were tired.

But signing went so far beyond that for us.

For one thing, before our kids turned one, they were able to share their world with us through sign. We had a give and take of conversation way before they were verbally able to express themselves. They could see a dog and sign dog to us, and we could verbally say, "Oh, yes. You see a dog!" Consequently they were both early talkers. I truly believe this helped develop our relationships.

And I'm not saying that our signing is directly responsible for our daughter's high verbal scores or our son's extensive vocabulary, but it certainly couldn't have hurt.

More importantly, early signing also enabled us to share our values with our kids. In fact, if I had to label our parenting style it would be value-based. Right after the signs for milk, more and all done we taught them the signs for please, thank you, and sorry.

While they were still babies they developed the habits of good manners and respect. They might not have completely understood the importance as infants, but they do now.

Parenting is so hard. So often we question the things we do and the decisions we make. To be able to look at one certain thing and say, "Yes, we were absolutely right. That contributed to the great kids we have today," is a huge confidence builder. Signing with our babies is that thing for us.

Check out further discussion in the RedRiverMoms forums.