When did you start baby sign language?

[TrudyCampbell]

And when did they start using it?

R is (almost) 5 months and I was thinking about starting "more", "milk" and "all done".

Too soon? I'm not expecting her to sign it back for a long time, but I figured the earlier the better...?

[imimahoney]

Around 6 months. He understand the signs right away but took a lot longer to sign them back, maybe around 8 months?

[Faevantastic]

At 6 months. I think you could start doing it now though since there's going to be a lot of repetitiveness.

[ktstorm]

I think around 6 months? At least that's when daycare started. I didn't realize until he was 9-10 months, when they sent a sheet of signs home with the parents. I'm pretty sure he was like "Uh Mom, why aren't you listening to me?"

[TrudyCampbell]

What other signs did you guys do in the beginning? I know a lot of them from Violet but we did it when she was much older. Is it better to add them gradually?

[imimahoney]

Water, eat, love, milk, all done.

[Deleted]

I started around 5 months more, milk, mommy, all done, eat solids, daddy, outside, diaper, sleep

[carawestt]

I started with Lincoln around 9 months, I think. I did "milk", "more", "all done" and "please." He still signs please in addition to saying it. He started signing back after a week or so.

[Deleted]

She was doing "more" and "all done" consistently by 8.5ish months but I started teaching it much earlier, like around 6 months?

She also knew "please" . I know she learned that later but I didn't write it down.

[TrudyCampbell]

Oh "eat" is a good one.

[nannerl]

We started with more, food, milk, and dog at the same time as we started solids, so about 5-6 months. No signing back for ages, but we added mommy, daddy, and all done by about 9 months. At about a year to 15 months there was a signing explosion and by 18 months he was signing about everything.

ETA: weirdly his verbal language development followed almost the exact same timeframe, just almost exactly one year later (a few words at 18 months, a few more by two years, vocab explosion between 24 and 27 months, expressions and whole sentences in the last few weeks)

[katie]

Lillian started DC at 4 months and they started with her although I don't think she signed for months after. More was her universal sign for everything.

[browndog]

My mom took j to classes around 9 months, but he never signed then. He didn't see her for about 2 months (she lives in CA) but when he saw her again he started signing simple things like more, milk, etc. it was really weird.

[AndyCohen]

Aug 27, 2014 11:28:08 GMT -5 TrudyCampbell said:

And when did they start using it?

R is (almost) 5 months and I was thinking about starting "more", "milk" and "all done".

Too soon? I'm not expecting her to sign it back for a long time, but I figured the earlier the better...?

My SIL started around 4 months with both of her kids and they used/use it a ton.

[spaghetticat]

In addition to the ones mentioned, I also did bath.

[jg183]

We started at 4-5 months and he did it back around 10.
He understood it earlier though
They usually sign back when they can clap (coordination wise)

[blessed2bmama]

Between 5 and 6 months that we started being consistent, she started modeling back between 8-9 months. We started with milk, eat, more, all done, and drink. We added please, thank you, hot, cold, hurt, happy, dog, cat, sleep, and lots that I can't recall right now shortly thereafter.

[rxbeth]

I was only trying with milk early on and Madison did not seem to be catching on.

I ended up buying buying Baby Signing Time and using that after she turned a year. She ended up obsessed and learned SO much.

[TrudyCampbell]

Aug 27, 2014 19:56:26 GMT -5 rxbeth said:

I was only trying with milk early on and Madison did not seem to be catching on.

I ended up buying buying Baby Signing Time and using that after she turned a year. She ended up obsessed and learned SO much.

I have all these DVDs... how young do you think I should play them for her? I am not really into her watching any TV at all but at some point I don't think a 30 min speech DVD will harm her. 

[rxbeth]

Aug 27, 2014 19:58:39 GMT -5 TrudyCampbell said:

Aug 27, 2014 19:56:26 GMT -5 rxbeth said:

I was only trying with milk early on and Madison did not seem to be catching on.

I ended up buying buying Baby Signing Time and using that after she turned a year. She ended up obsessed and learned SO much.

I have all these DVDs... how young do you think I should play them for her? I am not really into her watching any TV at all but at some point I don't think a 30 min speech DVD will harm her. 

At the end of one of the videos, it talks about using if for younger kids but not watching the whole DVD.  Just doing, like, 1 segment at a time.  I get where you are torn.  We didn't do a lot of screen time before a year old.

[vthokie]

They started around 6m at day care. She had milk down pretty well by around 8m. They did a lot there, but we were only consistent with milk, please, and more. We stopped once she was talking, but she still signs please if she really wants something