10 Baby Sign Language to teach your baby and reduce frustration during the toddler years

Before there are words, there are sounds, before there are sounds there are signs.

Just because a baby isn’t talking yet doesn’t mean you can’t communicate with each other. Learn basic baby sign language to teach your baby to communicate with you.

Just because baby isn’t talking yet doesn’t mean you can’t communicate. Learn how to teach baby sign language using everyday baby signs.

4 Benefits for teaching your Infant Sign Language

  1. Signing is the fastest and easiest way to reduce frustration in your baby or toddler.
  2. it builds join attention/bonding. This just means that you and your baby/toddler can pay attention to the same thing and be able to communicate.
  3. Signs are a bridge to words. Signs are an extension to gestures and gestures come before words as a way to communicate.
  4. It provides additional motor practice. Using your arms and big body movements that allow their bodies to develop and move from motor skills to a more refined skill such as speech.

When To Teach Baby Signs

Babies understand words long before they can start to say them. Your child is learning how to use gestures to tell you something. He might hold his arms up when he wants to be picked up, or start pointing at objects he wants to play with. These gestures are an attempt to communicate.

Your child is ready to start using signs when you see him paying attention to his hands (or yours)—playing with them, bringing them to his mouth, or using them to pick up his toys.

How to Teach Baby Sign Language

  • Make the gesture whenever you say the word in your day-to-day routines. 
  • It’s important to show the sign and say the word or phrase every time. Every time you give your child his bottle, say the word “milk” and do the sign for “milk.
  • Be patient and be consistent. You’ll probably need to show the sign repeatedly for up to a few weeks before he picks it up and starts using it.
  • Start with a few signs and build upon.
  • Use every opportunity to demonstrate the sign.

What signs to teach first

More

More in Baby Sign Language

Eat

Eat in Baby Sign Language

Milk

Milk in Baby Sign Language

Drink

Drink in Baby Sign Language

All Done

All Done in Baby Sign Language

Please

Please in Baby Sign Language

Go

Go in Baby Sign Language

Sleep

Sleep in Baby Sign Language

Help

Help in Baby Sign Language

Open

Open in Baby Sign Language

Other Baby Sign Language Signs

Baby Sign Language Wall Chart

Download the sign language chart at babySignLanguage.com

Tips for teaching Sign Language