I have just spent the last two weeks at home in Ireland visiting friends and family and got to catch up with lots of new baby’s that have been born.

These babies ranged in ages from 3-6 months and there were an equal split of boys and girls. Of these 6 children, one mum had actively decided to try baby sign language from day one, some decided to wait until their baby was at the best age to start baby sign and some had not made a decision as yet.

The one thing I noticed with all the parents of these babies is that, while they had not decided to do baby sign language just yet, all of them were using signing unknown to themselves.

For many years, I have spoken about how easy it is to introduce baby sign language using Auslan into your home as a lot of Auslan signs symbolise the action that you would do naturally.

Looking on at these parents it was fantastic to watch them use their hands to communicate with their babies, unbeknown to themselves. One mum moved her hand to the side of her face as and placed her face on it, each time it was time for bed. The sign for bed / sleep is this same action. Another mum was moving her hand to her mouth each time she was offering her baby a drink, the same action in baby sign language for drink.

If these mums are consistent with their signing, they could soon find that their babies could be returning these actions/gestures back to their parents.

However, as many parents have discovered, to help with your baby sign language success, it is important you balance practical signs with motivational signs.

Examples of practical signs would be eat, drink, sleep, change etc while practical signs are signs that motivate your baby to learn more – what they are interested in. These signs differ from baby to baby but examples include teddy bear, music, book, car, cat, dog etc.

An example of a motivational sign in action happened when I was at home also. A dad was telling his daughter how he was going out to town in the car and would be back soon. As he said car, he moved his hands like his was steering a wheel and made a “beep beep” sound.

As well as engaging his 4 month old daughter his two older boys (aged 3 and 5) loved this expression and were copying his actions. Again, this movement of his hands is the sign for car in baby sign language and an example of a motivational sign for some babies.

The thing with all these sign is that they are pretty universal gestures for bed, drink and car. These signs are iconic – the sign you do is symbolic of what it represents. Because a lot of Auslan signs are iconic, this helps when learning sign language as it makes the process a lot easier.

Next time you are with friends or family who have young babies or children, watch to see if you notice any universal signs in action.

It would be great to compile a list of universal signs that parents are using without knowing. How big would this list be? Would these parents convert to using signs if they knew they were already using signs in their daily life and what impact is it having on their babies?

Maybe with your help this is something we can research together. Let me know what you have noticed in relation to gestures and universal signs among your friends and family.

With only 8 days to go, the count down has begun to the Baby & Toddler Show Melbourne.

We are looking forward to being a part of the show again this year and you can come visit us at stand 185.

The show is being held at the Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Gardens in Melbourne.

The Opening times are from 9.30am to 4.30pm daily but you can get early entry to the show with an Early Bird Ticket (which you can buy here now), getting you into the show at 9am.

As well as having a stand at the expo, we are also being featured on the Bio-Oil Baby & Toddler Seminars. Our talk will be on baby sign language, the benefits, the frequently asked questions, the international research as well as where to start. You can catch the seminar each day at 3pm on the main stage.

If you can’t find our stand, just look for the stand with the cute baby featured in the picture here.

While the popularity of Baby Sign is ever growing in Australia its much more common for Mums to be the ones who start using sign much more so than the Dads.

Now I do know that there are a lot of you Dads out there who do sign with their children so please don’t get upset, you Fathers should be proud of what you are doing and the interaction that you are enjoying with your baby’s through sign.

But, the reality is that for many families Mum is the primary carer of the baby and Dads are out at work all day, coming home later in the evening with little time to spend with their precious little one.

The idea of starting to learn something new to a lot of these Dads is that it is not worth it as they don’t have to deal with the day to day communication problems that are associated with a young baby.

But here’s the thing.  Learning to sign and having that extra bond with your baby does not have to be hard.

Here are some ways to help get your partner involved; but first make sure that they do want to be involved and start out by teaching your partner the signs that you have already introduced or are planning to introduce so that you are both working together as a team.

• Explain why you are doing baby sign;

The research and studies into baby sign have shown numerous benefits from enhanced vocabulary, higher IQ, reduced tantrums and a closer bond as a parent.

By talking these through with your partner and explaining why you feel that using baby sign will be of a great help to you in raising your baby your partner can understand your motivation and desire and work with you to support that.

• Reading with your baby;

While they may be out at work all day a lot of Dads enjoy the role of putting their baby to bed at night as this is some of the only time they get to spend together during the week.

A bed time story is a great way to send your baby off to sleep and reading with your baby is a great opportunity to introduce some signs to help animate the story.

• Get your family involved;

Baby sign is all about consistency and repetition so the more people you have signing with your baby the better.  Get Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and siblings involved.

Create fun easy games that anyone can play to help you entertain your baby like hide and seek where you hide your baby’s favourite toy and sign “Where is the Toy”.

The more people who are involved the more likely your partner will start to join in as well since nobody likes to be the odd one out.

• Teach your baby to sign “Dad”;

I’ve lost count of the number of mothers who I have spoken to who started using baby sign while their partners were sceptical only to become the most proud father of the playground the moment their child first signed “Dad” before they were talking.

• Take a baby sign class together;

Taking time to do activities with your children is an important part of the bonding process so doing a baby sign class as a family can help you all learn new skills while having fun at the same time.

If you’re a Father who has used baby sign with your baby please do leave us your feedback below or send us your story, I would love to hear from you.

While baby sign language is a fun and useful tool just to help bridge the communication gap with your child it can also have very real advantages when used with children who may be at risk from some sort of developmental delay such as premature babies.

While many premature babies grow develop extremely well as they grow they are in a category that can be considered higher for having speech delays.

Premature babies are generally assessed developmentally against an adjusted age for important milestones but when compared to other babies by their chronological age, they may be slightly disadvantaged with their speech improvement.

The main question this really raises though is “When should I start signing with my baby?”

Now usually you should start to sign with your baby once they can hold a rattle or other toy and they start to have some movement and dexterity with their hands, which is around 5 – 6 months.

In a premature baby this may be 7 – 9 months depending on how early your child was born.

The interesting thing is that the reason to generally wait to start signing to your baby  only when they can begin to sign back is because most parents need to see results or they will not continue with baby sign.  The fact is your baby is taking in everything and even though they may not be physically capable of signing their ability to understand signs develops much earlier.

It’s the same with talking.  Even though babies cannot talk for around the first 18 months of their life most parents will happily chat away to their baby, this is how they learn and baby sign is no different.

So if your baby is premature you may want to begin your signing a little bit earlier to allow them to start absorbing the signs.

Remember to be patient and always say the spoken word with the sign and in context, follow our signing steps to success for more information.

While baby sign has been shown in many studies to have benefits including accelerated speech and advanced IQ levels this cannot be expected of every child.  If your baby is premature then baby sign may be just the thing for you to help them catch up with their chronological age group and provide a great foundation for early learning.

When ever any one asks me what baby sign language is all about I normally say to them, “Have you seen the movie Meet the Fockers……?”, which normally jogs the memory.

While the signing that Robert Deniro is using with his little Grandson Jack is ASL (American Sign Language), the principle is exactly the same as using AUSLAN (Australian Sign Language), which all Baby Hands Products are based on.

This is a great clip from the movie where Grandpa Jack (Robert Deniro) is showing off little Jacks signing prowess to Greg (Ben Stiller).

The movie is great and I fully recommend getting a copy for yourself, especially now that winter is rolling in so a great night in with a funny movie is a nice way to pass an evening by.

Well its been a very exciting week here at Baby Hands.  Our Pine Rivers teacher, Natalie O’Hara, was interviewed and featured on the Channel Ten News at Five in Queensland.  I would like to thank the parents and children who were willing to be filmed for the piece and also say Congratulations to Natalie.

For those of you who missed it, don’t worry as we are appearing on Channel Ten again next week.  This time we are appearing on the 9am with David & Kim show.  We are appearing around 10:25am on Tuesday morning so keep it free.  In the interview you will get to see how Jennifer has successfully incorporated baby sign language into her home and what benefits of baby sign she is experiencing.

If you would like to see me in person, next week I am appearing in NSW at Stanhope Village Castle Hill Mums & Bubs Club on February 12th at 10am.  Also on February 24th, I am appearing at Westfield Garden City in Brisbane at their Mums Group in the Borders store at 9:30am.

Finally, for those of you who are visit the Bonds Bumps and Baby website, we are being featured in a video interview on their website in the middle of February.