Our start with Baby Signs

Jason and I have started working on Baby Signs with Nicholas and Celia. I used to think that teaching your baby to sign would delay verbal development, but thanks to my blogger friends, I have learned that this is not the case. Research shows that children who signed as babies scored higher on IQ tests, have larger vocabularies and speak and communicate at a higher level than those children who did not sign as babies. I have started reading the book 'Baby Signs' and copied some of the starter signs and taped them on the fridge so that Jason, Grandma, myself and other people can refer and learn them to help Nicholas and Celia. Baby Signs are simple signs - not as tricky as American Sign Language since some of those signs can be developmentally difficult for babies. We have started using a lot of signs, but they are surprising us by picking up on these signs so quickly. Nicholas can sign frog (tongue in and out) and dog (pant). Celia can sign frog, dog, baby (cradle arms and rock) and milk (open/close fist like milking a cow). They understand more of the signs than they can do, but I think for really working on this for less than a week they are doing amazingly well. This will help ease frustration when they want to communicate and are unable to pronounce the word. It is also neat to be able to interact with them in this way and see how intelligent babies truely are. Its very exciting. I am considering becoming a certified Baby Signs instructor so that I can teach other parents about these signs.
Here is a video of them doing a couple signs tonight. I pulled them up to the table after dinner and was giving them one chocolate chip at a time to teach them to sign 'more' (point finger into palm of other hand).