Baby Signs

During college, I worked at the University of Minnesota Child Care Center in the Infant Bungalow. It is an incredible center with focus on diversity and education...things you would expect to be tied to a University facility. During the 2 years I worked there, I learned so much about how to care for babies. From the amazing soothing qualities of swaddling a newborn to how many ounces of water need to be mixed with each scoop of formula to which foods were appropriate at which age to what an amazing communication tool baby sign language is.

From the moment Emilia was born, even earlier then that, we knew that we wanted to teach her how to sign as a way to communicate with us before she was able to verbally. Experts agree, "by teaching your child gestures or signs as well as spoken words, they are more quickly able to understand and communicate with the world around them." I had seen how much fun it was to communicate with babies this way at this Child Care Center and I had also seen how much frustration was avoided because babies were able to tell you what they needed without crying or whining until we figured it out.

We worked day after day with Emilia, saying and signing: all done, milk and more. It seemed she would never start using the signs but then, one day, it all just seemed to click. She realized that if she signed for "milk" she would be nursed or given a cup. If she signed for "more", more food would be put on her tray. If she signed, "done" she would be wiped up and taken out of her high chair.

Now, we are challenging ourselves as mom and dad to keep up Emilia and continue to teach and challenge her. The two words we are working on now...thank you and bath. We have flash cards that teach us most of the signs we want to know, but for signs that are not in this handy pack, we refer to http://www.signwithme.com/. You can print out a Sign With Me Cheat Sheet and even type in a word you want to know the sign for and it will show you how to do it with a definition and little video clip. Try it out!