Good morning, everyone! Coffee. Hold on. Cheers! Cheers, Milo.
Okay, I wanted to talk about how we have been teaching Milo — who's now just about
13 months — sign language. I've shared a bit about this on my Instagram story and it's kind of just
too bulky of a topic for me to talk about in short form. Up front, I just want to share that, if you
have not yet implemented this with your children, it's something that you can start at any time. So
we tried to start this as soon as possible when Milo was a baby—an infant—but children are so
adaptable and they can learn this really at any time. Also, I myself don't speak ASL (American
Sign Language). I did learn it for refinery29 video back in the day and at one point I kind
of knew how to like spell things in it but the signs that we use with Milo I completely learned
once we had him and I actually learned them in a bunch of different baby books. Milo's just about
13 months the words he's saying right now include mama dada dada Ball cat randomly he says bat—we
taught him that on Halloween. He's starting to say the names of some of our family members. So for my
sister Ally he says "Ah" - did you say Ah? that's my name, say it again. For my dad who's going by
poppy he says pop pop, my mother-in-law is Nona he says Nona, he's starting to say DD which is
the name for my mom, and Grandpa for Michael's dad - he kind of says like Grandpa. he does this
interesting thing where he puts the word 'a' in front of things so like instead of just saying
bat he says a bat and instead of truck he says uh truck and he says that for car too uh car.
Cheers, Milo! The point of having signs with your baby is that at this age a lot of times
they can understand what you are saying and they want to communicate with you but their
brain just like can't figure out how to say the words yet. Like their brain-mouth connection
is not quite there yet. They do know what they want. They know when they want milk,
they know and they want to go to sleep, they know when they want water, but they just cannot get
the words out so having these signs is a really great way to let them communicate their needs to
you so that they're not just fussing and kind of moaning and they think they're saying something
but they're not actually communicating it to you. When Milo turned about four or five months,
that was when we introduced solid food and we started giving him different purees. From the
day that we gave him his first bite as I would continue to give him more I would always say, "do
you want more?" and I would put my hands together like this and I would always contrast it with,
"do you want more or are you all done?" Every time I'd give him another bite I would say, "More. you
want more." and then I would give him more and at the end of the meal, just before I would take the
plate away, I would say, "Okay, we're all done." and then take that away. it probably took five or
six months of me doing that regularly. I wouldn't say he started doing the more sign until maybe
nine or ten months but I just did it on repeat and I taught it to all of our family members and
so anytime he was eating and we were giving him more food we would pair the action of giving him
more food with the hand sign for this and the word more. We use it with more than just giving food.
So if we were in the bath and we were splashing and he was having fun I would say, "do you want
more?" and then we would do it again and he's kind of was getting the gist that it meant like
an extra serving of something. I remember that for the longest time he knew what I was saying
when I said more and he would kind of like flail around which I think was his way of saying, "yes,
I want more" but he was not actually doing this with his hands until maybe nine or ten months and
now at 13 months he very clearly can be eating and then he'll go like this if he wants more and
for all done he doesn't quite do it exactly the way we do it but he kind of just goes like this
with his hands and I think especially at the end of the day that's his way of he knows he's going
to get a bath so he starts going like this because he's really excited to go in the bath. Some other
signs that we taught Milo - milk, this is a big one. Probably at around six months we implemented
this and every time it was time for milk I would say, "milk" and I would just say the word with the
hand motion this got a lot easier when I stopped nursing around nine months and we were giving him
bottles because every time we take the bottle out I would say, "milk, milk" Very clearly probably a
couple months after we started using the sign Milo would let us know when he wanted milk and he would
be playing and he would just do milk, milk. We actually have him on a feeding / milk and meal
schedule now so he sometimes asks for milk in the middle of play time or before a nap when it's not
actually time for him to have milk so when he says that I acknowledge that he's asking for milk but
I usually say like, "not right now, we're gonna have milk later" but sometimes I'll ask, "do you
want water?" and so this is the sign for water I think it's like a w, three fingers tapping at your
chin. I think one of the best things about these signs is that when I'm at a place with Milo like
for example if we go to a class together and he's across the room from me and there's a lot going
on like a lot of over stimulation in the room he can look back at me and he can just do a sign.
he doesn't quite do this with the three fingers but he kind of goes like this for water and I
know what he's asking for. we could be at of class and he'll do the sign and I'll say, "oh, you want
milk!" and I'll give it to him and it just cuts out the need for him to be fussy where he's trying
to tell me something that I cannot understand. So we do milk, we do water... it's really helpful
at the table because we often don't keep his cup right on his tray because he throws it overboard
so I'll sometimes keep the milk with me and he'll be eating his food and then he'll just go
like this and I'll say, "Okay, you want milk" and I'll give it to him and it really cuts out a lot
of the fussiness throughout meal time. One thing that we're working on now is "please" we didn't
introduce that from the beginning. If you're starting from scratch, I would maybe from the very
beginning start doing you know more please, milk please, water please. That's a good habit to get
into that you're just like training them to say that polite word after things. Some other signs
that we'll use are "play" where you just kind of go like this and then "sleep" I think it's like
this like pulling the comforter over your head we sometimes do like sleep or we sometimes go
like sleep and we just mimic the actual head on a pillow action. As long as your child and you are
on the same page with the signs you're giving it doesn't really matter if you're doing the
sign properly you're actually just using signs and symbols that help you communicate with your child
the most effectively. We don't use the signs for Mom and Dad but you can Google what those signs
are. We just always kind of said Mama and Dada and pointed to ourselves and now he uses our
names so we don't need to use those signs. Same thing with yes and no. Very early on we taught
Milo yes and we would nod our head or I would say no and shake our head I think the signs are like
yes and then I don't know no is like this. We just actually use our heads for it. Very, very young,
whenever he would hear someone say the word yes he would just kind of go like this you know put his
whole head into it and then only more recently he started saying no so if we're doing something that
he doesn't want us to do he'll just say like no no no no no no no. "Milo, you want to come out?"
"you sure?" "yeah" and you can tell he doesn't want it to happen and he also shakes his head
with it we've taught him the sign "eat" or "food "and so we just kind of take our hands and put it
to our mouth and we'll say, "do you want to eat?" or sometimes I'll rub my stomach I'll be like,
"are you hungry?" and pair it with eating so I'll say, "are you hungry? Do you want to eat?"
I feel like I'm talking to a baby. Honestly, these are really the words that we use every
day with him. "Are you hungry? Do you want to eat? Yes. No. Okay, do you want more? Are you
all done? You want water? Do you want milk?" these are the things that we need to say to
him all day. You know, we're not asking him did he file the taxes. Other signs that we use...
I think this is "help" and so if he's trying to do something and he needs help we'll just do the
hand symbol with it. He's actually never used this one with us but maybe one day he'll tell
us that he needs help. And then one that we taught him more recently that I actually was
more aware as I was teaching him this one and I actually saw him learn it which is really cool,
is "book" and so you know we've been reading him a lot of books since he was born and only recently
I started doing the sign "book" and saying it whenever it's time to read. It's so cute now
at the dinner table sometimes he'll be finishing up his meal and he'll go like this and at first
we thought he was clapping because he claps when you say clap but he was clearly doing it a little
slower and a little bit wider now it's just so fascinating because he can tell us that he wants
to read a book and if he does this and we say, "book? Do you want to read a book?" he's like
like a dog so excited. It's so rewarding to be able to understand what he's saying. You know
it's very rare that at his age he's able to form all these words and say these words you
know it's normal for a one-year-old to only have a few words in their Arsenal but to be able to
sign the rest of the words just opens up a whole world of connection that you can have with your
child that allows you to really understand their needs and communicate with them so much easier.
He does a lot of pointing and going like you clearly know he's trying to say something he's
pointing at something and his brain cannot say the word so he's just going uh but now instead
of just pointing and grunting he could go like this and we know he wants a book and we can you
know entertain that for him. There are a ton of other signs that we're starting to incorporate.
Whenever he is going to the bathroom I'll use this sign for "poop" and I'll be like, "poop,
are you pooping?" hoping that one kind of comes back around in the future when we're trying to
potty train him I think sign language is helpful not only for babies in being able to communicate
their needs but it really helps decrease frustration from a parental level because
it can be really frustrating to hear your baby grunting or fussing or crying and you just don't
know what they need and as babies develop language as they start to understand words you're saying
more and as you have signs and symbols and ways to communicate with each other that mean yes or no or
explicitly tell each other what you're going for it is just way smoother in the household and this
is something I highly recommend everyone do. Let me know if this video is helpful. Let me know if
there are any other signs that you have used with babies that you feel like really change things
for the better. I would love to incorporate new ones and I hope everyone has a great day [Music]