Baby Signs for Mealtime (Baby Signs (Harperfestival))

This is a great book. We didn't have the board book for our oldest daughter, now 6, but we had the textbook for parents. The premise is that you learn to communicate with your baby sooner, and facilitate their language development. Your child will slowly stop using the baby signs once they start speaking. Our daughter used baby signs 3 months before she started speaking. We made up some signs, as needed for our family. We have pictures of her using her baby signs now, which are so cute to look back on. The board book is a great idea, because it plays on baby's attraction to pictures of other babies. My 7-month-old enjoys it, and she really soaks it up. She watches me like a hawk when I make the sign and say the word. I can tell that she really gets it. From experience, if you want to teach your child ASL or any other language, you will need to use that language at home constantly. If you stop, they will forget everything. So, to teach your child ASL, first you need to learn it. This is definitely not the book for that. It is, however, a great book for its purpose of helping baby to communicate earlier with family members.

I have just been introduced to the wonderful world of BABY SIGNS, and I LOVE it!! I have a background in American Sign Language and have always intended to teach my children to sign. Baby Signs allows you to begin signing at such an early age, and it's so easy. For those of you who worry that some of the signs are not true ASL, don't. The reason the signs are modified is so that little fingers can do them. You can always choose to model the true signs as your child gets older and can communicate with less frustration. After all, that's the purpose of Baby Signs, to reduce frustration and tantrums in babies who cannot yet express their desires in words. I have the full set of (four) board books, and my daughter loves them. She can turn the pages by herself, and she loves to look at the pictures and the signs. Better yet, she loves it when I sign to her. Babies are mesmerized by hands and never pay more attention to you than when you use your hands to communicate. (Try doing the hand motions for "itsy-bitsy spider" and you'll see what I mean.) Anyone who desires a less frusterating relationship with their youngsters (and who doesn't?) should get involved in Baby Signs. These board books are sturdy enough to live through several children, and will definately help to make your life easier.

We started out with the "My first baby signs" board book, and once our daughter got a pretty good handle on those signs, I bought the mealtime and the animals books. I wish I'd bought the bedtime book while I was at it. The baby signs books are her favorite books to look at... and now that she knows the sign for "baby", she'll sign "baby" and then what she sees on the page. Even on the front cover of the Animals book, she signs cat because the baby is signing cat.Some of the words in this book don't make a lot of sense to a baby. The "all gone" page, she doesn't sign "all gone" but she signs "drink" and says "ga ga" (means crackers) because that's what's on the page. But you know what, that's ok because 1. She enjoys these books immensely and 2. She's learned a LOT of signs from reading the books constantly.She's been signing 1 month (17 mos old) and knows 35 signs. Once your baby gets a handle on signing, these books won't even be enough, you'll want to find signs for other things that aren't even in the books.I would start with the "First Signs" board book, and see how your baby picks them up (some kids never get an interest in signing so I'm told). Or you can take a chance and buy all 4 books. Don't do what I did and just get a couple because then if your baby really starts catching on you'll be kicking yourself that you didn't get the rest.This book is a great book, but I think the "first signs" book is a better introduction to get your baby interested in signing.

I am a child development teacher with an emphasis in infants and toddlers. I have always fully supported the idea of teaching infants to sign and have seen wonderful results over and over. I recently found this book at my local bookstore and was very pleased with it. Although not all of the signs used are ASL, they are signs that young children are capable of. In general practice, many children will make up their own variations to any given sign. Most signs are approximations, but some are very different than the sign that was initially introduced, thus the ones that vary from ASL can be corrected once a child is learning to sign properly, if needed. The biggest rule for hearing children when signing is to always, I repeat, always say the word as you are signing it. This way the child is given a way to express themselves, but is also hearing the word that is associated with the need. I highly recommend this book for parents who want to teach their babies (starting age about 8 months) to sign.

I am a signing parent who uses American Sign Language. I found the Baby Signs for Mealtime book to a highly useful resource.The signs for EAT, DRINK, ALL GONE, ICE CREAM and BANANA are staight-up ASL signs. The signs for MORE, APPLE, HOT, and CEREAL are slightly modified. I am OK with these variations because they are easier for babies to use, given their limited coordination. I just want this to be fun and easy for my baby - I can teach him 'proper' ASL signs later!I was really glad to see that the authors included signs for BIB. I couldn't find these signs in any of my ASL dictionaries.My favorite feature of the book is the last page, which contains photos of the food items from each of the previous pages. I can say "where's the banana?" to my baby and he can point to it on the page. Then we make the sign for banana together. This last page is the icing on the cake because it gives us a fun way to use the signs and interact with each other.As an educator and a parent, I highly recommend this beautifully photographed book to anyone who would like to sign with their baby.