I was in the kitchen today making lunch and shouted through to my two eldest to ask if they needed a drink.

I popped my head round the door to see Mara stood looking at Finn signing milk with both hands. He hadn’t noticed she was there as he was engrossed in the Cbeebies website.

This was her way of asking him if he wanted a drink. Weeks ago she did sign ‘drink’ but like my other two children did, she now uses the ‘milk’ sign to mean both drink and milk.

Last week we were on holiday so rather than being in bed by 7pm Mara was out watching the children’s entertainment and dancing.

Now we are back home she is struggling to get into a routine again.  Normally she’d be in bed by now but instead she is sat on my knee watching the fish.  She is signing fish and repeating ‘ish, ish’.  The little monkey has no intentions of going to sleep anytime soon!

Mara seems to have decided that she can talk so doesn’t need to sign.  She babbles away and points saying, ‘that’.  Most of her babble isn’t understandable but she clearly thinks it is!   She hasn’t signed much at all this week but I have been still using signs in the hope that she will pick up where she left off and start to sign again.

I’ve not managed to blog recently but have been writing down a few notes so I can fill in the gaps. Two weeks ago we started going to TinyTalk baby signing classes. I was chatting to the teacher about which signs Mara knows, it made me wonder exactly how many she now uses herself. Here is a list of the ones that I can think of off the top of my head:

Cake
Biscuit
Strawberry
Hurt/ouch/pain
More
Milk (she signs this for milk and drink)
Donkey
Horse
Bird
Dog
Bounce/trampoline
Dance
All gone
Cat
Chocolate
Fish
Dirty

When signing most of the words listed above she also attempts to say the word, I am really impressed with her speech. I’ve heard before that when a baby has older siblings they are slower to talk. I think Mara is so used to hearing so much noise in the house that she is making sure she gets a word in! She really is trying hard to speak.

We were in a cafe today eating chocolate cake. Mara knows the sign for cake but I thought I would introduce the sign for chocolate. This sign uses the same handshape as the letter ‘c’, you tap the ‘c’ shape on your chin. Mara was sat on my knee and wasn’t looking at me, rather than sign chocolate on my chin I did it on hers. She then turned round to me and signed it on my chin. What was even more impressive was that she said ‘chochchate’ at the same time.

Thank you to all who entered the Birthday giveaway, Apologises for taking so long to announce the winner, we had several days of Birthday celebrations!

I’ve just had to read through my previous posts, since having babies my memory is terrible. I had mentioned before that my daughter is very small for her age and was referred to a paediatrician regarding this. She now seems to be gaining weight steadily and we no longer have concerns about her development. She got off to a slow start but is now doing what her brother and sister where at a similar age. I hate to sound like I am comparing babies, they are all different but for a while I was genuinely concerned about her.

Her weight on Friday was 16lb 1.5oz, the closest guess was Wendy at 15lb 15oz. Well done Wendy, I will get your book in the post soon.

As usual I haven’t kept up to date with posting her signing progress. On Thursday my husband I were discussing her Birthday cake, I turned to find her signing ‘cake’ over and over again. When I responded by speaking to her about the cake she stopped signing and looked so pleased with herself.

On Saturday whilst she was eating strawberries I showed her the sign for them (I only signed it once). The following day I was chopping some strawberries and giving her a piece at a time. She amazed me by signing, ‘strawberry’ followed by the sign for more. I think this is the first time she has used several signs together.

I’ve not been very good at keeping up to date with this blog recently, since it is the school holidays life has been rather hectic.

Mara has continued to sign away and has picked up some new signs – cake and ‘all gone’. I’ve only signed ‘all gone’ to her in the context of food, I have used it to mean that she is finished eating. She isn’t a great eater, the little monkey throws her food off the highchair then signs to tell me that it has all gone.

The other day her brother was helping her to play with a shape sorter toy. She managed to get one of the shapes throw the hole, clapped and then signed all gone. I was surprised to see her use the sign since I’d only ever used it at the dinner table.

Mara has only just started to clap in the past week, she is almost one year old. I’ve read that when babies wave and clap it is generally a clue that they are ready to sign. My daughter has been signing for several months now yet only just started to clap her hands.

Two or three weeks ago we went to the seaside for the day. We stopped at a pub to have some lunch. Mara started to sign dog and attempt to say the word. We were looking all round trying to see where there was a dog. I then realised that the song, ‘who let the dogs out’, was playing on the radio. Her Grandad is very proud of her ability to sign, he has been telling everyone he meets about this. He was pushing her through John Lewis on Saturday when she started to sign dog, she had spotted a cuddly dog toy on display.

It is wonderful to be able to communicate with her so well, without being able to sign we’d not know what was going through her mind in situations like these. Likewise, on Sunday when my husband was carrying her she was signing away as she’d spotted some pigeons on the ground.

I mentioned above that she now signs cake.   She might not be a great eater but if she is offered cake she soon hoovers it up! The first time she copied me signing cake it looked more like the sign for more. She appeared to realise this and corrected her handshape. When we were in the shopping centre on Saturday she signed cake out of the blue. As far as I know there wasn’t any cake in sight but there was a really strong smell of cookie being baked in Millies cookie shop round the corner. Do you think she could have been why she signed cake? I have no idea if a baby her age could make an association like that.

Her second tooth came through last week, it gave her quite a bit of discomfort for a few days. She has been very congested and has been tugging her ear a lot as though she is in pain. I have signed hurt quite often, pointing to her ear and asking if it hurts. So far, she hasn’t signed this herself.

Since my daughter has learnt the sign for dog, every animal she has come in contact with has been called a dog. Last week at Woburn Safari Park she watched the sea lion display while excitedly signing dog!

Yesterday when I was picking my eldest up from preschool we saw two cats lying in the car park, again my daughter thought they were dogs. I explained that they were cats and showed her the sign, which she copied immediately (proud Mummy alert again!).

The only problem is that the lazy little tyke is signing one handed. To sign cat, you use the fingers of each hand to draw whiskers on your cheeks. She is doing it with just one hand, quite close to her mouth. At the moment it looks like her sign for eat. Luckily she is also attempting to say cat. In time her handshape should improve, as it already has with the sign for bird (this was mentioned in a previous post). Signing makes it far easier to understand her, if I only heard her saying, ‘at, at’ it could mean anything, seeing the sign too means I can easily understand that she means cat.

Animal signs seem to be becoming very popular with Mara, my other two children used animal signs a lot too. The Child’s Play, My First Animal Signs contains 48 different animal signs, it has been a favourite book in our house. It is also recommended by Scope as part of their ‘In the Picture’ campaign as the book features images of disabled children. Disabled children are portrayed along side their non-disabled peers taking part in activities.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that my daughter hadn’t signed back, ‘eat’ or ‘drink’, well now she has.

We visited my parents earlier today. My husband was eating a biscuit and Mara was being held by her Nan. She spotted that he had a biscuit and got quite excited. I asked her if she wanted one and she responded by signing eat. I said, ‘what do you want, a biscuit?’ while signing biscuit. The sign for biscuit is to tap your elbow twice. She didn’t tap her elbow with her right hand but held her other arm in the same position as mine. I am sure this was her first attempt at signing biscuit.

Later she tried to sign, ‘drink’, I was most impressed, as my other two children never signed this. They used the sign for milk to mean any type of drink. She is using the correct handshape (like holding a glass but isn’t signing it near to her mouth). I know she means drink as she also says, ‘b,b,b,b,b’, which she has been using the past few days for ‘bottle’.

Babies generally don’t use the exact handshape when they first learn to sign but over time it will develop/improve. When she first started to sign ‘bird’ she would point with her index finger rather than use it alone with her thumb to represent the birds beak. My son pointed out earlier that she is now using the sign correctly.

Recently on a parenting forum a Mum mentioned that she never knew when to sign to her baby. I hope by reading my blog posts it will give you an idea of when to use the signs. Any time you’d normally say a word, you sign it too. I keep repeating this but it is essential that you sign and speak. The aim of signing with hearing babies is to promote early communication, not replace speech.

My daughter is just over eleven months old, she is now able to sign the following:

Bird,
Dog,
Fish,
Goodbye,
More,
Eat,
Drink,
Biscuit.

By being able to communicate her needs it should help to reduce the frustration that non-signing babies have.

I’d love to hear how about other babies who have signed, please leave a comment to share child’s progress. If you have any questions then ask away, I will try my best to answer any queries.

My daughter turned 11 months a couple of days ago, I find it hard to believe that she is almost a year old already.

Last week she started to sign, ‘more’. I was feeding her some Weetabix and she signed, ‘more’ to ask for another spoonful. She has used the sign many times since.

She is really funny to watch, she will use a sign, realise that it gets a response from us then use each of the signs that she knows (dog, fish, birds) as if to start a little conversation, it is very cute to watch.

I also use the signs eat, drink, milk and biscuit often but she hasn’t used any of these herself yet. She is getting more and more vocal everyday. Parents often worry that signing will prevent a baby from wanting to speak, research has shown that this isn’t the case.