Review/Giveaway: Baby Signing Time
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 8:32AM One of the few things I was absolutely certain of when I was pregnant was teaching Coraline to sign. When you are pregnant with your first baby I think you have all kinds of ideas about raising this little person, all these ideal situations and grand things you will implement. Not all of those ideas are easily made a reality when your child comes. Signing with her was one of the things I have absolutely stuck with since literally day one. I started with the signs I knew from working with nonverbal autistic children; all done, more, potty. Simple. I knew she wouldn't be using signs at 2 months or even 6, but I did them everyday without fail anyway. Repetition is a huge learning tool for a baby.
A common misconception is that teaching your baby signs will hinder their language development, which is actually the opposite of the truth. In fact a study done with two sets of children, children who were taught sign language as babies and those who were not, concluded that children taught signs had higher I.Q. tests. Another study found in two sets of 24 month old babies, the babies who had a sign language vocabulary had a higher verbal vocabulary set then the babies who did not know sign.
We didn't want Coraline to know sign language because we thought it would make her smarter. I wanted her to have an early means to communicate her feelings and needs as a way to reduce frustration on her part. As I mentioned before, I was a Behavioral Therapist with Autistic Children for some time and I have first hand experience of the frustration and upset a nonverbal child experiences. Signing does not just reduce Coraline's frustration, it reduces ours as well! We can all quickly communicate, alleviating the screaming tantrums caused by an unknown need.
Needless to say, as Cora has gotten older I knew that she would be able to start actually doing the Sign Language herself, as oppossed to simply understanding the signs that we do. I did some research and contacted Baby Signing Time asking if they would allow me to test out their videos.
http://www.signingtime.com/
I was sent the Baby Signing Time Volume 1 Set, a DVD, a CD and flash cards. Everything is high quality and well produced. We recieved the set at the beginning of June, Coraline was 9 months old. Every morning I put the Baby Signing Time DVD on for Coraline while she played in the living room. By no means did I make her watch, I simply had it on. She was immediately into it though, loving the songs and the adorable cartoon characters. Baby Signing Time uses American Sign Language (ASL), which was important to me. I know there are some videos and books out there that use a sort of made up baby sign language. It was important to me because ASL is a second language that can forever be useful, as though we were teaching her French.
The dvd has chapters all with a theme, food, pets, family and having a bad day. The host, is cheery and fun. Rachel tells and shows the sign first but she doesn't just say the words, she explains them and she explains how to do the sign. Then, you see a montage of babies and children doing the sign with a catchy little song. I catch myself singing these songs all the time, which is great. I think it is really helpful to see the children signing and doing the activities in the video, so Coraline learns the association. For example, Milk, Rachel shows milk and then shows children asking for milk and drinking milk, even a baby nursing! That was a huge hit with me, since Coraline is breastfed.
Everyday for 1 month straight this video played in our house at least once a day, sometimes more. Since we watched the video I was able to learn all of the signs in a day. From that first day on, I incorporated those new signs into our daily life. Quickly, Jp learned all of the signs and started to do most of them as well.
The results are pretty fantastic, I think. The one sign that Coraline picked up right away was "Milk", unfortunately it came at the same time as learning to wave "Hello" and "Goodbye". Milk is very similar to a baby waving, so it took me a week or so to realize she was actually signing for milk. I apologize to my daughter to the frustration that probably caused. Here I was thinking she was just really into this waving thing, when in fact, she had learned a new sign! I can not even begin to tell you how awesome it is that my 9.5 month old daughter can ask for milk. It has made life so much easier. She will be playing with her dad and sign for milk, JP will bring her to me telling me she is asking for milk. I never have to wonder if she is hungry. It is so awesome. Also in the month she has learned to sign "all done", although it is her approximation. Again, because she is an infant, clearly the signs are not going to be perfect. Staying in tune with your child is the key because Coraline's "all done" and the real "all done" don't really look alike. I can see though, how she is trying to copy the sign, she is doing the best she can, it's a good approximation.
It was hard to get Coraline to do the sign for Milk on camera, hence the being upset. I am not a terrible mother, lol, she ate within seconds of this video ending :)
So far Cora has those two signs in her vocabulary and I think that learning two signs in one month is well worth the cost of the Baby Signing Time Set. I know that she will simply add to her sign language skills over the next few months. I have already purchased the next two volumes of Baby Signing Time, that is how impressed I am!
I highly encourage all new parents to start signing right away with their babies. If your baby is older or even already speaking, Baby Signing Time is stil great to have. It's never too late to learn a second language, I might be just as excited about learning the signs as I am about teaching them to Cora.
Buy!
You can get your own set of Baby Signing Time tools at the website!
Win!
Baby Signing Time has generously given me the Baby Signing Time Volume 1 Set to giveaway to a lucky reader. ( a $45 value!)
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Contest closes July 24 , 2010 at 8pm
Winner will have 48 hours to respond to the notification email or a new winner will be chosen
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baby language, baby sign, education in Giveaway, Reviews 
Reader Comments (121)
My LO is only 6 months old, so I am sure there will be more things I won't get around to doing, but I really had every intention of exclusively breastfeeding, but due to a stay in the NICU and other issues, that didn't happen.
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I wanted to speak primarily Spanish with my firstborn who is 9 months old now. I find myself forgetting a lot and doing half and half. I also really wanted to sign which I also forget a lot. I love this giveaway!!!!!!!!!!!!
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With my first born, I really wanted to teach him to sign, and I have! He's 19 months, and we've slowed down on learning signs because he is now speaking a lot more, but I think he knows about 45 signs, and he still REALLY enjoys watching the Signing Time and Baby Signing Time DVDs that we check out at the library. He learns signs just from watching them. And, his signs do almost always looks a little different from the real sign, just like with Coraline. But as long as they know what they are trying to say, and you know what they are trying to say, it's all good! But another thing I wanted to do with my first born that I haven't done is teach him to go to sleep by himself. I still help him get to sleep every night, and I wish I had tried harder to have him learn to go to sleep unassisted.
I really wanted to use a jogging stroller with him... nope! never happened!
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When I had my little girl i really wanted to teach her sign language. I started at 6 months and at 10 months she was signing. i used a book that taught several of the common signs. Now we are trying for baby number two and I would love this kit to use with the next one.
Thanks!
I really wanted to teach my granddaughter to sign when she was a baby but didn't start until she was 18 months.
Something I wanted to do with my baby.... I wanted to nurse him for one year and we are just a few weeks shy of his first birthday and still going strong with the nursing!
I'm a public follower with Google Friend connect (P.S. we watched signing time today and yesterday!)
I really wanted to breastfeed for a year, and we were able to do it.
With my babe, I really wanted to take pictures more frequently but couldn't. Being mommy is hard work, was so wiped out after labor, breastfeeding troubles and now he is more mobile, he fusses & cries b/c he wants the camera. I take pics but wish could take more. time flies.
I wanted to cloth diaper my baby and I am doing it and loving it.
I wanted to breastfeed for a year - and we made it :)
I really didn't want to co-sleep, and we are co-sleeping. I haven't decided yet if I regret doing it. She seems happier, but I think it is part of the reason that she STILL doesn't sleep through the night, and she is 11 months old!
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I had a lot of ideas, I thought about signing (haven't done it), I want to only nurse for 1 year and still hope I can do it when I go back to work at 6 months (she is 5 months now). I wanted to start an exercise routine with a jogging stroller to help her realize the importance of being outside and exercise from early on, still haven't done that. With a long labor and then an unexpected C-section, I quickly learned that all my "plans" were just that "plans". The birth of our daughter has taught me to go with the flow more often than being worried about "supposed to". I think it is awesome what you are doing with Coraline, inspiring to me to start some of my wish lists! Thanks...
The only thing that I was SUPER set on doing with my daughter is Breastfeeding. I am so fortunate that I have had no problems and have been able to do so for almost 11 months so far.
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I really wanted to have a natural birth with no meds, and breastfeed exclusively. So many people told me to have a backup plan, but I didn't, and I had a slightly complicated but entirely natural birth and we are now 9 months into breastfeeding with no supplementation! :)
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For our 1st we wanted to teach her to sign and we did successfully. However, with my 2nd we haven't really given it a good attempt yet and he is already 12mos old. I think this video would help!
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In college I worked in a daycare in the baby room and we taught the babies signs. It really helped ease their frustration. I later became a special education teacher and worked with students with communication difficulties. Signing helped them as well. I always knew that I wanted to teach my own children signs as well. I now have a 11 month old and I do a few signs with her such as milk, more and all done. She doesnt really use them much bc she just points but I would like to try a video.
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