Sign on...

If I were to list some of my favorite baby moments, watching a baby sign would be somewhere at the top. It just makes me go "Aaaaawww, that is soooo sweet". And we're having plenty of those moments these days with Angel's expanding 'vocabulary'.

We started teaching Angel to sign a couple of weeks ago after I read some articles that said that teaching a baby to sign not only helps them to have a meaningful interaction with other people but also helps to increase their IQ. Because babies with Down Syndrome could have some speech delay, teaching them sign language could go a long way in broadening their horizon.

Though our initial efforts weren't consistent, she picked up some of the signs pretty quickly. She has already learned to sign 'bath', 'eat', 'no', 'stop' and 'hello'. The first thing she learned was 'bath'. So everytime we would take her to the bathroom, she would sign 'bath', sometimes moving her little hands over her tummy really fast just so we got the message :) Oh yes, this baby loves her bath time.

The developmental pediatrician who saw Angel last month was surprised that we were teaching Angel to sign - all credit to the various sites and blogs I read :) Anyway, she recommended the book 'Baby Signs' which I didn't find at any book store here so will order it on Amazon. Until then I'm relying on the internet for all the information I need. There are some very interesting sites out there and one of them called My Smart Hands, which has been developed by an enterprising mom, is quite good.

The speech therapist (who we met later) reiterated the importance of signing and suggested that we use gestures for every word. We have plenty of scope to get creative and have fun. It's like we're doing action play all day. Even Princess has caught on :)

If you are a new parent and would like to teach your baby to sign, here is a great video that could help you get started:



There's another good video that you can find here.

Teaching Angel to sign has been a high point for us. Yes, my baby can now 'talk' - in her own sweet way. And I'm loving it.

Thanks for reading,
JD