Like many things, there's a time and place where it is appropriate and/or necessary. I agree that most normally-developing kids don't need to learn baby signs, but it can be a lifesaver for some.
My eldest was very verbal and had a large vocabulary as a toddler but would "lose her words" whenever she was the slightest bit hungry, tired, or stressed in any way. She turned out to be on the autism spectrum, and at 24 she still tends to lose her words when she's upset. She was almost 2, and as I said had a very large vocabulary, but struggled to communicate her needs. For example, if she was thirsty, instead of asking for water, she would just start screaming at the top of her lungs and it was very difficult to calm her down. I taught her signs, and noticed that while she couldn't seem to remember the *word* for "drink" when she was thirsty, she had no problem remembering the sign. She also really struggled with things like "please" and "thank you," perhaps due to the abstract concept (autistic kids tend to be very concrete thinkers) so getting her to say "thank you" usually provoked a meltdown - but she would make the sign for "thank you" with no problem.
My middle daughter was about a year old at the time, and she just sort of picked up the signs by watching her older sister. As it happened, that was a good thing because she didn't actually start talking until she was almost 2; but she was very adept with signing and got her point across. Sometimes I wonder if her facility with signs played a part in her late talking; but my mother-in-law tells me my husband didn't talk until he was 2 either. She takes after my husband in many ways; and grew up to be an network engineer just like him - I have heard that late talking is very common amongst those who grow up to be engineers.
I did not bother with signs with my 3rd baby as she had completely normal language development, plus her older sisters seemed to intuitively know what she wanted and would translate if necessary!
Yes, I also found signing very helpful for a late-speaking kiddo, but unnecessary for the one that was "on schedule". The late-speaking kiddo got super frustrated when we (her parents) couldn't understand what she wanted, and the signs just allowed us to communicate in an age-appropriate way, even though her speech was delayed.
I have a late talker right now. Also taught her to sign but it’s not her favorite way of communicating. She can make simple sentences with pointing though. Like “you”. “Milk.” “My cup”. Her father and I are both mathematicians by training and she DOES love tinkering with things (and especially likes taking things apart and putting them back together, though at her age, she mostly ends up breaking them) so I do wonder about what you said about engineers.
My late-talker engineer daughter became VERY chatty as an elementary-aged kid (and is still very chatty as an adult). My husband and I used to laugh about how she was basically silent for the first two years of her life.
She always loved taking things apart, from the time she was little. Her reason was "she wanted to see what was inside." This extended to non-mechanical objects as well; on several occasions neighbor kids would show up at my house to tell me that there was a dead bird in someone's yard, and that my daughter was over there trying to saw it open with a stick to find out what was inside a bird.
Eventually she progressed to putting things back together again (thankfully not dead birds) and by high school she was doing a brisk trade in repairing damaged phones and iPads. She was a good student, but definitely stronger in math and science than in English and writing.
Interestingly, my eldest daughter (the autistic one) turned out to be much more gifted with words, writing and foreign languages; and went on to get a degree in linguistics with a minor in French. However, she is still much better at expressing herself via writing than by speaking, especially if she's under stress.
It's really interesting to hear thoughts on this from an American perspective. I'm in the UK (England, specifically) and we have much less of a push on excellence and IQ points etc for babies/young children (at least, as far as I've noticed) so these things never even crossed my mind when I started signing with my babies.
"It also feels like a further push to split up the dyad in two and get that baby on the road to independence." - this is an intriguing point, especially. I went to baby sign language with all three of my kids and although I was by no means consistent with it outside of class, I did teach them all some of the very basic signs. I didn't do it for independence so much as to be able to help them more myself, and to be able to communicate with them even more than I already do. Just because this is my experience, though, obviously doesn't mean you're wrong, but I think the culture of where you're raising your kids must have a big impact on how these sorts of things are perceived. It sounds like where you are, babies are being willed toward doing things for themselves much quicker than they should be (not your baby, from what you've said but the babies around you) so of course teaching them language would seem like a part of this. Where I am, I'm fortunate to be in a small pocket of society that champions co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, babywearing and responsive caregiving - as such, signing with our babies feels like an extension of the dyad, rather than an attempt to break it up
Not in any way trying to say you're wrong, just interested in how different perspectives can be on a topic. Thank you for sharing yours
We gave a half hearted effort to doing baby sign language but we kept forgetting and found ourselves still able to communicate just fine.
To your point about manners, however. I have major stick up my butt about it and it *stressed me out so much* that my oldest wouldn't say thank you until he was like 3.5 years old. So the next child said thank you immediately but wouldn't say please and absolutely not, that wouldn't stand. So I taught her the sign for please and I make her use it because it's easier for me to parent if the hateful self-talk can't tell me "and on top of everything else that sucks about you, your kids are just rude."
Baby sign language was developed for children that are delayed so they can communicate. My friends son was so upset that he couldn’t communicate that he used to bang his head on the floor. Once he learned signing he stopped hurting himself. Not all children develop normally and sometimes help is needed.
A friend gave me a baby sign language book when I had my first baby, and I remember thinking, that’s awesome; not gonna do it. No shade on those who do, as you said, but I was (and am now with baby deux) content to read their nonverbal cues and exist in that wild and beautiful space you described.
The only sign my kids have used consistently before they could say the word for instead is the sign for milk: the opening and closing hand. We say "nursies" when making the sign. That's been helpful for the 2/3 of my babies who didn't have a particular cry when they were hungry.
I tried just a few others with my older kids - "more," "diaper," "water," and "help" - without finding them worth the bother. Then again, my kids usually talk on the early side.
As with so many parenting things, I feel like signing is one of those YMMV things that helps some people a lot, some people zero, and most people who do it a little, but still might not be worth the effort for most of them.
The worst take I've heard about baby signing is that it's offensive to the Deaf community to teach your baby simplified versions of signs rather than full ASL versions. Uh, babies don't have a lot of manual dexterity? And parents of babies use simplified words and phrases in spoken language as well, without that being an insult against English? I'm not going to sign the equivalent of "Excuse me, would you care for a bit of breastmilk at this time?" I'm going to say "Nursies."
I did teach my older two kids to sign (a Herculean effort, punctuated by feelings of frustration and failure on my part) and didn’t find it that helpful in the end. By the time they are signing back and meaning what they sign, they are also speaking and meaning what they say 🤷♀️ I’m also of the opinion that 0-4 years will include meltdowns and we may as well just accept it; I don’t feel that them knowing how to sign prevented many meltdowns. I mean, maybe it did prevent several, but it wasn’t it worth the constant “oh crap I forgot to sing “milk” when I said the word”. I will not be teaching my third baby.
Same, girl. Love this, the second to last paragraph rings true and was my life during my baby’s first eight months too. Here’s to mother-baby, what a beautiful stage of life.
I'm a 100% with you. I always felt that is the parents who need to work and try to understand their babies, not the other way around. We do mimic but is to complement the words (we are a Spanish family living abroad). Kids impres me everyday, they way they think and understand the world. My 3 kids where able to learn different languages just because they were exposed everyday during our activities, so I think they can very well communicate with us if we listen properly.
Like many things, there's a time and place where it is appropriate and/or necessary. I agree that most normally-developing kids don't need to learn baby signs, but it can be a lifesaver for some.
My eldest was very verbal and had a large vocabulary as a toddler but would "lose her words" whenever she was the slightest bit hungry, tired, or stressed in any way. She turned out to be on the autism spectrum, and at 24 she still tends to lose her words when she's upset. She was almost 2, and as I said had a very large vocabulary, but struggled to communicate her needs. For example, if she was thirsty, instead of asking for water, she would just start screaming at the top of her lungs and it was very difficult to calm her down. I taught her signs, and noticed that while she couldn't seem to remember the *word* for "drink" when she was thirsty, she had no problem remembering the sign. She also really struggled with things like "please" and "thank you," perhaps due to the abstract concept (autistic kids tend to be very concrete thinkers) so getting her to say "thank you" usually provoked a meltdown - but she would make the sign for "thank you" with no problem.
My middle daughter was about a year old at the time, and she just sort of picked up the signs by watching her older sister. As it happened, that was a good thing because she didn't actually start talking until she was almost 2; but she was very adept with signing and got her point across. Sometimes I wonder if her facility with signs played a part in her late talking; but my mother-in-law tells me my husband didn't talk until he was 2 either. She takes after my husband in many ways; and grew up to be an network engineer just like him - I have heard that late talking is very common amongst those who grow up to be engineers.
I did not bother with signs with my 3rd baby as she had completely normal language development, plus her older sisters seemed to intuitively know what she wanted and would translate if necessary!
Yes, I also found signing very helpful for a late-speaking kiddo, but unnecessary for the one that was "on schedule". The late-speaking kiddo got super frustrated when we (her parents) couldn't understand what she wanted, and the signs just allowed us to communicate in an age-appropriate way, even though her speech was delayed.
I have a late talker right now. Also taught her to sign but it’s not her favorite way of communicating. She can make simple sentences with pointing though. Like “you”. “Milk.” “My cup”. Her father and I are both mathematicians by training and she DOES love tinkering with things (and especially likes taking things apart and putting them back together, though at her age, she mostly ends up breaking them) so I do wonder about what you said about engineers.
My late-talker engineer daughter became VERY chatty as an elementary-aged kid (and is still very chatty as an adult). My husband and I used to laugh about how she was basically silent for the first two years of her life.
She always loved taking things apart, from the time she was little. Her reason was "she wanted to see what was inside." This extended to non-mechanical objects as well; on several occasions neighbor kids would show up at my house to tell me that there was a dead bird in someone's yard, and that my daughter was over there trying to saw it open with a stick to find out what was inside a bird.
Eventually she progressed to putting things back together again (thankfully not dead birds) and by high school she was doing a brisk trade in repairing damaged phones and iPads. She was a good student, but definitely stronger in math and science than in English and writing.
Interestingly, my eldest daughter (the autistic one) turned out to be much more gifted with words, writing and foreign languages; and went on to get a degree in linguistics with a minor in French. However, she is still much better at expressing herself via writing than by speaking, especially if she's under stress.
It's really interesting to hear thoughts on this from an American perspective. I'm in the UK (England, specifically) and we have much less of a push on excellence and IQ points etc for babies/young children (at least, as far as I've noticed) so these things never even crossed my mind when I started signing with my babies.
"It also feels like a further push to split up the dyad in two and get that baby on the road to independence." - this is an intriguing point, especially. I went to baby sign language with all three of my kids and although I was by no means consistent with it outside of class, I did teach them all some of the very basic signs. I didn't do it for independence so much as to be able to help them more myself, and to be able to communicate with them even more than I already do. Just because this is my experience, though, obviously doesn't mean you're wrong, but I think the culture of where you're raising your kids must have a big impact on how these sorts of things are perceived. It sounds like where you are, babies are being willed toward doing things for themselves much quicker than they should be (not your baby, from what you've said but the babies around you) so of course teaching them language would seem like a part of this. Where I am, I'm fortunate to be in a small pocket of society that champions co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, babywearing and responsive caregiving - as such, signing with our babies feels like an extension of the dyad, rather than an attempt to break it up
Not in any way trying to say you're wrong, just interested in how different perspectives can be on a topic. Thank you for sharing yours
We gave a half hearted effort to doing baby sign language but we kept forgetting and found ourselves still able to communicate just fine.
To your point about manners, however. I have major stick up my butt about it and it *stressed me out so much* that my oldest wouldn't say thank you until he was like 3.5 years old. So the next child said thank you immediately but wouldn't say please and absolutely not, that wouldn't stand. So I taught her the sign for please and I make her use it because it's easier for me to parent if the hateful self-talk can't tell me "and on top of everything else that sucks about you, your kids are just rude."
Baby sign language was developed for children that are delayed so they can communicate. My friends son was so upset that he couldn’t communicate that he used to bang his head on the floor. Once he learned signing he stopped hurting himself. Not all children develop normally and sometimes help is needed.
A friend gave me a baby sign language book when I had my first baby, and I remember thinking, that’s awesome; not gonna do it. No shade on those who do, as you said, but I was (and am now with baby deux) content to read their nonverbal cues and exist in that wild and beautiful space you described.
The only sign my kids have used consistently before they could say the word for instead is the sign for milk: the opening and closing hand. We say "nursies" when making the sign. That's been helpful for the 2/3 of my babies who didn't have a particular cry when they were hungry.
I tried just a few others with my older kids - "more," "diaper," "water," and "help" - without finding them worth the bother. Then again, my kids usually talk on the early side.
As with so many parenting things, I feel like signing is one of those YMMV things that helps some people a lot, some people zero, and most people who do it a little, but still might not be worth the effort for most of them.
The worst take I've heard about baby signing is that it's offensive to the Deaf community to teach your baby simplified versions of signs rather than full ASL versions. Uh, babies don't have a lot of manual dexterity? And parents of babies use simplified words and phrases in spoken language as well, without that being an insult against English? I'm not going to sign the equivalent of "Excuse me, would you care for a bit of breastmilk at this time?" I'm going to say "Nursies."
I did teach my older two kids to sign (a Herculean effort, punctuated by feelings of frustration and failure on my part) and didn’t find it that helpful in the end. By the time they are signing back and meaning what they sign, they are also speaking and meaning what they say 🤷♀️ I’m also of the opinion that 0-4 years will include meltdowns and we may as well just accept it; I don’t feel that them knowing how to sign prevented many meltdowns. I mean, maybe it did prevent several, but it wasn’t it worth the constant “oh crap I forgot to sing “milk” when I said the word”. I will not be teaching my third baby.
Same, girl. Love this, the second to last paragraph rings true and was my life during my baby’s first eight months too. Here’s to mother-baby, what a beautiful stage of life.
I'm a 100% with you. I always felt that is the parents who need to work and try to understand their babies, not the other way around. We do mimic but is to complement the words (we are a Spanish family living abroad). Kids impres me everyday, they way they think and understand the world. My 3 kids where able to learn different languages just because they were exposed everyday during our activities, so I think they can very well communicate with us if we listen properly.