We knew early on that we definitely wanted to sign with Pooky. Using sign language with babies is a great way to teach them to communicate with you physically before they’re able to verbally. Our hope was that, instead of crying out in frustration, Pooky would eventually sign to us that she was hungry, needed to be changed, or just wanted to play.

We haven’t been very consistent in signing with Pooky. “Eat” and “More” have been the signs that we’ve emphasized most with her. Well, a couple weeks ago, to our delight, she started signing back! We’re so excited about it that we want to start introducing more signs.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon the Born2Sign website when searching for the signs for “cow” (she loves to mooo) and “horse” (her imitation of a neigh is a shrill scream). What a wonderful site! It’s a searchable database of simple signs that you can teach your baby, and the best part is that each sign has an accompanying video to show you how to do it.

I totally recommend teaching sign language to babies - you won’t regret it, especially when you see their first sign which is as precious as their first word.