Getting Started With Baby Sign Language

This sounds like fun. I’ll try it with my grandson.

Your site is pretty awesome. I’m very exited about having our family learn and use Baby sign Language to communicate with our 11 month old son. Thank you

Thank you for having this site available free! I’m so excited to try this with my twins. It’s a great site!

Just googled your website. I am trying to educate myself to help my autistic grandson to communicate.
In therapy they taught me how to teach him to say “more” and it only took a coouple of days, so I am looking forward to learning more on this site. It looks fantastic.

My baby girl is 4 1/2 months old should I start now or wait ?

ADMIN – Hi Rebecca,

You can start now. You can of course start baby sign language at any time, they will take in the signs and start to develop pattern recognition even as early as a month. The earliest most children start signing back is around six months, so now any time between 3 months and one year is a great time to start.

I had seen a dvd set to teach your baby to sign. I thought that was really nice. I came across this site by googling baby sign language. I am glad I did. My granddaughter is not due until July but I intend to learn the signs now along with my husband and daughter and to get into the habit of signing to her.

Thank you so much for this site.

Thankyou for this! I had been wondering about signing, and I’m starting right now with my 4 month old. Greatly appreciated! :-)

I live in Syria and I’ve heard about this language from a movie. I googled it and found this fantastic website… I started doing it despite of the idea that everyone here is laughing at me because they think I’m crazy….. thanks

ADMIN – Hi Arwa,

Cool. Glad to hear you pioneering baby sign language in Syria. There was a similar reaction in the United States ten years ago when baby sign language was getting started. Now, baby sign language seems to be a lot more common in the US, and most people have at least heard about it. I think many people are skeptical until they have seen it in action for themselves. You will be surprised how quickly everyone will change their tune when your baby starts signing back.

Hello, i love you website, thanks for having a very extensive excellent site.

I have been teaching my baby daughter signing since she was 4.5 months old.
she is now 7 months old and i have been teaching her milk, eat, more, mommy,
daddy, dog, cat, bird..

Since a few days ago, she suddenly makes her hands exactly like the milk sign but at random times. I don’t think she knows it means milk. It seems like she just happened to learn that hand movement and is so interested in doing it over and over. i don’t know if she knows or not and tried to give her milk when she did it but she didn’t seem that hungry..

And yesterday, when i was feeding her and signing her ‘more’ she did the same milk sign instead. I thought she meant for more so gave her more food.

Can you help me how I can help her do the correct signs at the correct times?
I am so thrilled that she is doing it correct but at the same time anxious coz she doesn’t use it properly..

ADMIN – Hi Zoozin,

Babies often will start imitating signs they saw earlier in the day, particularly when they are just starting. You will notice this with lots of behaviors, not just baby sign language. The observe, and internalize, then they will start to imitate over and over again later in the day. This is their way of processing, learning and remembering. Often, this will be out of context. It is a good thing, it means she is starting to learn how to do the signs and knows they are important. In the next month, you will start to see her getting more precise with her meaning.

Let her practice her signs. When she does it the first time, I would sign back and say the word and then offer her what she asked for. It is fine even if she didn’t want it, she will start to learn that the milk sign means she will get milk.

If you want to correct a sign, just say the correct word and make the sign. For example if she says milk where it is clear she meant more, say “you want MORE” while doing the more sign. Then give her what she wanted. Again it is very common for them to confuse signs early on or use the same sign for everything. When my daughter started, everything was daddy or dog.

Your daughter is doing great. Everything is going according to plan. Keep encouraging her, she will be signing up a storm before you know it.

My son is 6 months and he has been using the sign for milk since he was about four months only one I’ve taught him so far. But works great!

ADMIN – Cool. I think in the next 3 months you will notice that his language window will start opening soon and he will developing an insatiable appetite for new signs (and milk!).

Hello, I live in Colombia and I read about this when my daughter was 15 months, she is now 18 months and sign milk, more, dog, cat, eat, drink, hurt. Did I start too late teaching my toddler the signing language? Should I continue doing it?

ADMIN – Hi Angelica,

If she is having fun with it, keep on going. At 18 months, she is going to be starting to make inroads into speech, but the transition will take at least another year, and baby sign language will help her bridge the gap.

Thank you do much for this website.. I just learned about sign language for babies and I’m so excited about it. Sounds so much fun.. Im starting signing right away with my 7-month old daughter..! Thanks Again!

gosh i can’t believe it took me this long to find your site. I studied Sign in college and said i would teach my daughter when she was old enough but i was never able to find a website that gave me exactly what i was looking for as far as how to start her off, i knew parents were important as well as milk and i’m soo excited to try to teach her now that she’s 8 months :) thank you!!

Thank you so much. My little man will be eight months old in a week and a half and already knows the sign for milk thanks to this site! We are working on mom, dad, more, and diaper. I really appreciate free resources like this and I have passed the site onto my sister-in-law, also to my best friend who is expecting in December.

Thank you for this awesome site! Was very easy to find! I used baby sign language with my son who is now 5 when he was 6 months old. He picked it up quickly and still remember a lot of signs. He ended up not really talking much until he was 3! Is this because he didn’t need to use words? I now have a 4 month old girl who I have started signing with, she seems very interested. I also plan to make flash cards with the words on them in hopes she will learn to read the words as well! This site is a great refresher and it also has a lot of signs I never learned before.

Hi! My 3 1/2 month old son has Down Syndrome and the experts suggest in order to increase his verbal skills teach him sign language. We are doing this as a family and my 4 year old daughter is so excited about it. She walks around signing sister all day. She is having so much fun. We learn at least one new sign a day. I appreciate you having the videos on line as I’m such a visual person and I love to be able to see exactly what to do. I’ll let you know when Otto makes his first sign! Thank you!