My wife and I have an 18-month old daugher, and so we know what it's like to parent a little one. Since our daughter was 6 months old we began teaching her sign-language. We were disappointed because she wasn't picking it up, but we kept at it. By her first birthday, she suddenly began signing back to us!

 

You can just imagine how thrilled we were! Now instead of guessing what she was fussing about, she could actually communicate it with us. Our daughter can sign the following words: food, drink, milk, more, done, and please. So when she wants to drink some milk, she can tell us. If she's done eating, she can say so. We also make her say "please," so our daughter is learning manners even before she can talk.

 

Amazing, isn't it? We think so.

 

The best part is that you don't have to know sign-language in order to teach this to your baby. I knew nothing about sign-language when we started, but these words are so easy to learn.

 

Our daycare provider also picked up on the words. As our daughter would learn a new word, we'd teach it to our daycare provider in the morning when we dropped her off. It would literally take 5 seconds to show the provider the new word. That's how easy it is for us adults to learn this stuff.

 

So anyway, I just wanted to share this tip with you our HelloBabyStore customers.

 

If it's something you think you'd be interested in teaching your baby, there is a great eBook called "Sign Language for Babies and Beyond" that provides all of the instructions (including video examples of the signs) you need to get started.

 

God bless!