Baby Sign

Today I taught Phoebe two more signs: "more" and "enough". I'm not sure she actually understands the meaning of them yet but judging by the last two meal times I'd say she's definitely getting there.

Babies are very expressive with their bodies and signing comes quite naturally to them. In fact, Phoebe makes a lot of her own signs up, as most babies do. For example, sucking on hands generally means "my teeth hurt". Pulling on ears means "I'm getting tired". So teaching them a few more is actually quite easy.

You don't have to teach many. Just those words and phrases that are most important and are used most often. And they don't have to be by the book either. My mam gave us a baby sign language book and we refer to it if we can't think of a nice simple sign for something, but generally we just make it up, use what comes naturally or base it upon the signs our 6 year-old niece learnt as a baby. She still remembers them (or has been reminded of them) so it makes sense to teach Phoebe signs that other family members understand too.

Most people teach their babies to wave when they're about 8 months old anyway. Signing works in the same way. You just repeat an action in the right context when using the correct words. They soon pick it up.

After "bye", the next sign Phoebe learnt was the one for "milk". This is particularly useful now that we're towards the end of our breastfeeding days. I still haven't decided when to wean Phoebe so for now I'm going with baby-led weaning (with some slight encouragement towards dropping the mid-day snack, which was going well until she got a chest infection). La Leche League recommends "don't offer and don't refuse" so having Phoebe be able to ask for it when she wants it is pretty helpful. Some days she doesn't ask so she doesn't get it.

For a long time she only really knew the sign for milk and often only used it when I reminded her. Her milky cry is now being used, or adapted, for so many things these days. It generally just means "I want" so I have to encourage her to accompany it with a sign that tells me exactly what it is that she wants.

Then just last week she started using the sign for "food" and uses this whenever she's hungry. We're also teaching her signs for "home" and "drink", which generally refers to water. I haven't decided where to categorise cow's milk. I'm pretty sure she uses her milk sign to mean breastfeed and she'd be a bit dirty about it if I tried to palm her off with cow's milk instead.

Well, I was writing this whilst Phoebe had her dinner and I can confirm that she totally gets "more". The issue is "more" of what? I was feeding her yoghurt and kept asking if she wanted more or had she had enough. When I asked if she'd had enough she shook her head and then she started making the sign for more. But she didn't seem overly interested in her yoghurt. However, she ate it all up and I eventually found out that what she actually wanted was more grapes. Clever girl.

About the shaking the head thing, well often it means "no" but she still just does it for the sake of it, Stevie Wonder style, and she's now added a sort of a nod too. In the car on the way home from daycare she shakes her head all around and cackles this false-sounding laugh. I think that's her "excited" noise, as she also makes it when we find Diggedy (her favourite toy) at bedtime. She cracks me up.

She has become au fait with her shape sorter. Well, with the circle anyway. The other shapes are still a bit hard although she can do the star with a bit of help. She'll sit and push the circle in over and over again for ages. She also sounds like she's trying to say some words. Her vocabulary is still fairly limited to "mama" "daddy" and repetitive consonants but in the past few days she seems to have attempted "no" and "Grandad" ("nan and "nana" having been mastered a while back). However, she does seem to have a sound for the cats. It's quite complex - Toby thinks she gets it from hearing him making the "tt tt tt" noise when he calls them for dinner. She sort of rolls her tongue behind her front teeth and it sounds a bit like a cat purring. She sometimes says it in the car coming home from daycare and Toby thinks it's because she's excited about seeing them again.

And before I go, I just wanted to say that Phoebe got a new cousin to add to her collection today. And I got a nephew. He's such a cutie and we wish we could cuddle him soon. I can't wait to speak to my sister and find out how it went and how Lucy is adapting to being a big sister. I can't believe it was only a year ago that Toby and I were basking in the glow of having delivered a newborn unto the family. And now we have a crazy toddler. They grow up so quickly.