Well, if you're like my husband, it's "just another excuse for a coffee morning", and then you spend the rest of the baby's early years playing catch up :D
I had read about baby signing years before I had considered having children of my own and somehow, even then, it just made sense. So, when ours did finally come along it just seemed like a natural thing to do (well, give it a try at least!)
The Perks
The classes were fun, and yes I met some lovely mums with whom I eventually
DID enjoy the odd coffee, so I guess it was a coffee morning of sorts, but with perks (perks - coffee.. see what I did there??). After completing two terms of the course our little one (who was 8 months old when we started) started signing up a storm! And, this was where the cynical father was caught unaware and spent ages playing catch up - All of a sudden this little "thing" more commonly referred to by his father as "It" had a "voice" and interests that he was desperately trying to share with his Dad.
The Benefits
Suddenly the bonding between father and son became stronger as they could discuss the birds and squirrels outside (we were in the UK at the time). It took the guess work out of parenting (to a point :s). DS wanted water not milk and could communicate this! "More yoghurt", or "I'm done" were also firm favourites.
The look on the little one's face when he realised that we understood him was an amazing sight and it did not take him long to really build on his signs to get his message across. This cut out so many of the frustrations experienced owing to a lack of understanding or being understood. now we could say "can you sign it?" and more often than not he could!
Because baby sign is never silent, that is you always say the word as you are signing it, it provides both an audible and visual way to enhance understanding. This really helps the little ones to process the message far more easily and more quickly which, in turn makes the development of speech and language and therefore communication a much smoother process.
I'd love to hear about your experiences with baby sign. Please comment below.
If you'd like to know more about baby sign visit www.babybabble.guru