• Question Corner?

  This month - "How long will it take for my baby to sign back to me?"
  I get asked this regularly and because each child, as well as the circumstances they are brought up in, is different it is a very hard question to answer.

  I have parents who have babies that started to sign at 6 months, the earliest I have been told of is at 5 months. There are also those parents out there who have 12 month olds and are still waiting for that 'first sign'. The important things to remember are:
  - Be consistent
  - Say the word and do the sign in present context
  - Don't give up - so many people email me telling me they were about to give up then out of the blue baby did their first sign!!!

  To outline some of the stages of a babies development from 1 - 24 months I have put a table of infant development table on the website:

  You may also want to visit the FAQ page of my website for further information.

To submit your questions, send them to me jackiedurnin@australianbabyhands.com
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• Your Stories:
  

  “My 17month old Harmonie is a very bright child. As soon as I started using the basic signs Harmonie started copying me straight away. Her favourite sign is more she uses it all the time, ‘more breakfast’, ‘more drink’, ‘more food’, she even combines the signs. We use the eat sign for food and she signs ‘more food’. Harmonies daddy works away a lot and I sat down today and said daddy is coming home today and she said and signed to me daddy I was so proud of her that she had used her sign and not only her language and she understood what I was saying.”

  Harmonie Signs Please

Thanks from Kate Dhu
and Harmonie 17 months
North Haven, NSW

Do you have a story and a picture that you would like to share? Send them to me jackiedurnin@australianbabyhands.com
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• Book Signing Tour:
  The last few dates for this year are coming up from my book signing tour. As always even if you have my book please feel free to come along and say hello. It's a great opportunity to meet you in person and answer any questions you might have.

More dates coming up: For full details including address click here:
Friday 13th Oct: 10.00am Angus & Robertson Wetherill Park NSW
Saturday 14th Oct: 10.00am Angus & Robertson Winston Hills NSW
Friday 27th Oct: 11.00am Dymocks Tuggeranong ACT
Saturday 4th Nov: 11.00am Angus & Robertson Blacktown NSW
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• FREE article by Baby Sleep Expert, Tizzie Hall - "The Dreamfeed":
  As we continually improve our service at Australian Baby Hands we greatly appreciate and value the feedback that is supplied to us. Thank you to all those people who answered the survey we sent out last week and took the time to respond.

  For anyone who missed the survey and would like to get Tizzies article on "The Dreamfeed", which explains how to encourage your baby to sleep longer at night, meaning a better nights rest for you then please click on the appropriate link below to fill out the survey and the article will instantly be emailed to you:

  - If you have downloaded the free chart only please click here:
  - If you have purchased an Australian Baby Hands product please click here:
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• FREE Sign Charts for your mothers group or playgroups:
  Many of you have downloaded the free chart that you can get from the website.
  We have just changed the layout of this chart to make it quicker to download and we prettied it up in the process. If you would like to download another copy click here or right click and select "save link as" to save to your computer:
  http://www.australianbabyhands.com/downloads/ABH_SignChart.pdf
  

  If you have a mothers group, playgroup or any other childcare organisation and would like to receive some printed copies of the chart for your group please contact us with the details of your group, your name, address details and how many you require.

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• Great Unique Baby Gift:
  

  This baby gift is really unique and special. I met Chantel and her daughter Macy a few months back after Chantel contacted me due to her interest in baby signing. We got talking and she told me about her own site that she was developing:

  How would you like to look back in time and get a real feel for what was going on the day you were born? What adverts were on TV? What horrendous clothes your parents were wearing? What dodgy music they were listening to? The YouAreBorn Time Capsule is an interactive CD with pictures of carefully selected awesome Australian website's taken from the day your baby was born. They capture the feeling of that special day with news headlines, TV adverts, most popular baby names and much more. This Australian invention is a product that is not available anywhere else. To see a demo of the YouAreBorn Time Capsule click here.

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• FREE Tickets to the Parents, Babies and Children's Expo:
  This month we will be at the Parents, Babies and Children's Expo in Melbourne between the 20th and 22nd October. We would love to see you there and have free tickets for anyone who would like to come along: click here for your free tickets

If you are coming along we will be on stand number J27, down the right hand side near the exhibitor stage in the corner.