The use of baby sign language has pretty much saved my life and my sanity. I started using it with my toddler because our failure to communicate was causing us both a great deal of stress. There were tears and the stomping of feet coupled with an overall feeling of desperation.

My toddler was not happy about the situation either. I began by teaching her the signs she would need to communicate her basic needs: hunger, thirst, pain, and discomfort (the need for a nap or a diaper change). Once we became fluent with these signs, I started adding signs to our repertoire to help develop my daughter’s oral vocabulary, but these signs are also fun.

Here are 5 of the most fun baby signs!

1. Signs for Food - 

To make the baby sign for hunger, you make a “c” shape with your hand and then move your arm up and down, from your throat to your stomach, like food going down. I have found rubbing the tummy to be a more effective way to teach this sign, as it is what we naturally seem to do when we feel hungry as adults. You could also use the sign for “eat”, in which you pinch all of your fingers together and move them to your mouth like you are eating.

These signs for hunger are different than making signs for different types of food. These signs are fun to make and give you a sense of your child’s food preferences very early on. Once your child learns numerous signs for foods, you can find yourself in danger of becoming a short order cook!

I like to present my daughter with two choices. For example, offering two different fruit choices with her morning oatmeal, like “strawberry” (pinching the fingers of one hand together and making a twisting motion around the pointer finger of your opposite hand) or “banana” (motioning as if you are peeling a banana).

You can learn the signs along with your child and make everyday tasks like cooking dinner and going grocery shopping opportunities to engage in actual conversation!

4 more signs continued on the next page!