Less than two weeks ago we restarted our efforts to teach Ingrid baby signs, based on the strong suggestion of a commenter. We’d given up earlier because she didn’t seem to pay much attention. This time, however, the success was clear and immediate. (Thank you, Katarina!)

After about a week she tentatively copied the “all done” sign after a finished meal. Since that was met with cheering, she tried it the next time as well. And oh how happy she was when this led to her getting down from the highchair! Huge beaming smiles all around. She hasn’t been eating much recently so it has been hard for us to judge whether she is done or just wants something else (for “something else” read “fruit”). Now that she can tell us when she’s done, all of us are less frustrated.

At first she only did it after meals, but I think she’s also generalised it to other situations – “all done with bath” primarily, because that’s the other activity she cannot finish or get away from without help.

The other sign that she picked up very quickly was the “milk” sign. A great success all around, because her previous signals for wanting milk have never been very clear: a slightly different unhappy noise was the best we got for a long time, until she learned to pull at my t-shirt. I must say I much prefer signing to t-shirt-pulling – firstly it’s less uncomfortable, but more importantly she can do it from a distance.

She hasn’t understood “eat” yet and I think she slightly confuses “milk” with “eat” – not because they look similar but because milk is probably the quintessential food for her. “More” hasn’t clicked yet, either. We’ll keep trying. Our next signs will probably be “all gone / empty”, “dog”, “bird” and “airplane” – and “crane” if I can find or think of a sign, since she has been pointing out every single building site and crane we pass.

PS: I’ve mostly picked signs based on American Sign Language (ASL) because I could easily find online resources for ASL – photo dictionarys etc – whereas British web pages only tried to sell me books, DVDs or classes. Too much marketing, too little information.