Sign with Your Baby: How to Communicate with Infants Before They Can Speak

Bought this with the best intentions, but am reviewing it on the basis that I didn't get much beyond chapter 2 .. Might be a fabulous book, but honestly if you have the time and energy to get through this and start a learning program when you have a baby a couple of months old you're a better parent than I am.

For me, in the early days, I found it much more natural to tune into what my baby needed- ie: combine knowledge of your child with reading natural signs (eg The Baby Whisperer) than work on teaching him how to tell me.

Further, I found I used my own signs naturally when I said certain words which my son picked up on.

I read that children who learn sign language like this as babies don't end up better off in terms of language, so it really is a balance between the effort of following a program like this with the benefits you get for the months before your child starts making their own sounds and signs to tell you what they need.

However you do it, you need all the other members of the household to be on board to avoid baby getting frustrated with a family member/parent who isn't as tuned in.

I bought this at considerable cost with high hopes and found it very frustrating. It's hard enough coping with your first baby without setting yourself additional tasks which are going to make you feel inadequate if they don't bear fruit - or worse still, make you feel frustrated with your child unnecessarily. (It's bad enough when they won't eat the fruit puree you've just made.) Babies don't do things when you want them to and that includes learning signs. I note that some of the other reviews are written by people who've only just bought the product and therefore cannot possibly have tried it out yet as the process takes months. If you're a very confident, easy-going person who can cope philosophically with failure then by all means give it a whirl. And I also think it might be better to try it with a second or third baby rather than with the first - because you'll have more realistic expectations of what's possible because you're a more experienced parent. But beware of expecting miracles.

I had heard about this book from 'This Morning' TV programme. I bought, read it and started using two signs when talking to my son. It took a little while but he soon started telling me when he wanted more food and milk and he would sign hello and goodbye. It has been great to be able to know what he has wanted before he could talk. However we still do sign sometimes and this book is a must for any family. The signs are simple and very easy to remember, its just remembering to use them!! Hopefully he will be able to comunicate a little with someone with hearing difficulties in the future.

I bought this a few days ago, and read it within 3 hours of its arrival. The signs are clearly illustrated and very easy to learn and the book is well written and laid out. There are 140 or so basic (baby-related) signs to learn, which I should imagine will keep us going for a little while before we have to buy a dictionary.

The one drawback for British buyers is that it is an ASL book, not BSL, which some may feel is a problem. I gather the complete set (with video etc) also comes with BSL translation, but I didn't feel that a video was necessary, or worth the extra expense as the illustration and description of the signs in the book is so clear.

I'd certainly highly recommend it to anyone, UK or elsewhere, who is interested in learning the basics of signing for better communication with their pre-verbal babies.

The text of the book is very short but easy to read and convincing, although I haven't tried it yet.

The book uses american sign language (ASL) rather than the british equivalent (BSL) and they are very different. So if you would like to teach your baby BSL (which I think makes more sense in the UK) you'll need either a separate BSL dictionary or you can buy the complete sign with your baby UK learning pack with video and BSL word guide.

I found deciphering the signs quite tricky from the diagrams, so the getting video would probably be a great help from the start.

This is worth thinking about before you buy the book on its own: I'm now going to get the complete pack so I'll end up with two copies of the book.