Recently, we have had a lot of people ask us why we are doing signs with Addison and if she has hearing problems so I wanted to explain why we chose to do signs. Although we have lots of ear infections and have had the tubes, Addison does not have any hearing problems as of yet, thankfully. Most of the signs we do are American Sign Language signs although some are modified for babies. It all started when a baby signs teacher visited a breastfeeding group I was part of when Addison was an infant. She did part of a baby signs class and explained the benefits of the class. Months later, my friend asked me if I wanted to take part in a class with Addison. I jumped on the opportunity to meet other moms, to get Addison socialized even more than she was getting in daycare, and so Addison and I could have something to do on one of the days we were home. But the main reason was to help Addison communicate with us earlier than most children can communicate.
Signing provides pre-verbal children with communication skills that they would not otherwise have. Infants develop motor skills and can understand communication long before they can speak verbally. So learning to sign helps infants and toddlers communicate their needs, therefore, there are less frustrations.
Here is one example of how baby signing helped ease my frustration and Addison's frustration! After this night, I said if that is the only sign she does, it was worth it! Of course she has done many more since. It was April 18th, 2010. Addison was 9 months old. She woke up at 3am and Scott was in DC. She was no longer nursing in the night and if she woke up, we didn't fed her. However, the night of April 18th, she was upset and I couldn't get her calmed down - I checked her diaper, I checked her temperature, I massaged her tummy for gas, and everything else I could think. Finally, she looked at me with a face I will never forget (kind of a "come on already") and signed for
milk. She nursed for over 20 minutes. She didn't eat well the day before but it didn't occur to me that she would be hungry in the middle of the night anymore.
Another instance that followed shortly after:
At daycare in April, she wasn't drinking a lot of
milk. Finally, I told them that she was signing for
milk and showed them the sign. After that they gave her more milk, basically when she asks for it. I had to take twice as much breastmilk as before. Before she didn't get fussy (she doesn't fuss for food at school -I think she is just so engulfed in all the fun and learning) and when they just gave her
milk, she wasn't interested/ready. After they learned the sign and how to recognize it, she did much better drinking milk there.
Now it helps because when Addison wants something we get her to sign or say it instead of whining. It is helping, although she still whines and fusses sometimes :) If she is hungry she signs for the food she wants. If she is thirsty, she signs for a drink. If she wants to go outside or put on her socks and shoes, she signs it.
An added bonus - there are many research studies that show that signing with infants and toddlers increases their expressive and receptive vocabularies when they are 1-2-3years old and that their verbal skills excel through elementary school years. I could go on and on...
