Baby Signing Time

Baby Signing Time is a DVD I have been wanting to watch with Sweetpea and Buddy but was unable to find it at our library.  A great friend found out that we wanted to preview it before buying, loaned me her copy.  Sweetpea, Buddy, and I sat down to watch and it was a great educational movie.
Baby Signing Time is learning DVD to help teach babies and young children various signs using music and actual signing babies.  A little warning to parents, the songs are very catchy.  After watching the DVD once, Buddy was signing several new signs and singing the songs.  The first section is about food and eating which completely sidetracked Sweetpea because as soon as a picture of a banana appeared,she crawled to her highchair and pointed to our bananas.  She spent most of the rest of the movie eating her banana and watching.  She was not very interested until the babies would come on screen and Sweetpea would wave at the screen and say 'hi!'. 
If you are looking for resources to help you teach your child sign language in a fun and engaging manner, I recommend trying Baby Signing Time.  Between the music, the babies who sign, and the host, Rachel Coleman, children will love this movie as a first step into signing.

Teaching Baby to Sign

One of the greatest frustrations for parents of infants and toddlers is the lack of ability for their child to communicate.  By teaching your baby to sign, they can begin to tell you what they want at a much younger age.  I saw this demonstrated when I was about 12 years old with a young cousin and, from that point on, decided I would teach my children to sign also.  My cousin was able to tell us when he wanted to eat and even would sign 'please' and 'thank you'.  Manners at a young age never hurt anything!  Signing with your child allows them to let you know what they are thinking and wanting without you having to play a guessing game.  It reduces frustration (both parent and child), reinforces developing language skills, and teaches your baby to participate in conversation at an early age. 

When Buddy was about three months old, I bought the Sign, Sing, and Play Kit and set out on the adventure of signing.  I signed for everything, trees, birds, trains, etc.  Buddy finally began signing back around nine months and he quickly began to use his signs daily.  He kept to the basics like 'more', 'please', 'eat' and 'thank you'.  Baby Einstein -Baby Wordsworth Around the House taught him more signs and reemphasized the ones that we were already doing.  In fact, now that we are teaching Sweetpea, he joins right in signing along with me.

I have been signing to Sweetpea since she came home but have focused the signs to the more functional ones.  I was pleasantly surprised today when Sweetpea used her first sign at lunch.  She signed "more" when I was a little slow in producing a bite of baby food.  It was really encouraging to see her be able to clearly communicate instead of fussing.  Hopefully this is just the start and she'll take off! 

If you are interested in teaching your baby to sign, there are a lot of resources out there to choose from.  TheParentingSite.Com has a list of benefits of signing with hearing babies and has tips on getting started.  I recommend finding the resources that work for you and dive right in with your baby!