She's been getting frustrated at me in her attempt at communicating so I thought I'd put her out of misery and show her a more effective communication method than the snot faced distortions that was going on.
I raise my fingers to my mouth as if putting food inside and say they word food. She replies foo.. Close enough hey!! But jarah (2yrs) does it to her and she copies him. Done and dusted.
She usually says 'want that' and points but I guess when there's no food in sight it's hard to point and see what she wants.
As her mother I can clearly tell she wants food but it's not the point. The point is an appropriate communication method that can be used with other people, like Auntys or Nanas.
In the past I've had great success in using baby sign language in encouraging both the spoken word and body language to communicate a message with my tiny tots.
You don't need to know it all or use it all, in fact I don't. But I would recommend using it to all frustrated mothers of non-verbal infants in communicating effectively.
Words we use often include food, drink, no. I think we know about 50 words but these 3 are used the most. No is a great word to sign because you can carry on a conversation with someone while telling your child to stop doing what they are doing and no one can tell.. Unless they know the sign for no.
If you want to get started google baby sign language. You will find a variety of sites. Try find a simple one with short videos on how to use the sign for the word.
My only caution.. Is that SOME (not many) revert to sign language only and not talk. My experience with 4 kids has been word explosions and positive use of words. My young sis-in-law has a form of dyspraxia and therefore is included in the stopping use of speech when using sign language.
When using sign language you almost always use words to associate the sign to the spoken word, therefore encouraging the spoken language. As my children have grown a little bit more I've stopped and started as the next child hit that place. I actually sometimes use it to speak long distance to hubby ;) Hee Hee
It's a bit of positive fun..
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