I love using signs with babies. It alleviates so much frustration during the time when they know what they want, but don't have either the cognitive or physical ability to express it in spoken language.
Today I had a breakthrough with O using the sign for more. This is the sign that I have found to be among the most useful, and one I've been working on with her since she was about 6 months. Now, at 13 months she's using it. Though not always appropriately. But today she clearly was signing more indicating that she wanted more of the broccoli eggs I had made for her lunch.
To get her to successfully use the sign, I would occasionally put her hands together for her to prompt her to not only watch but make the sign. Today, whenever she would yell for more eggs I would instead gently encourage her to do the sign. And as soon as she made the sign (even if it only sort of looked right) I would reinforce it by immediately giving her what she wanted more of, in this case the egg.
She looked positively delighted! And I am hopeful for less yelling and more communication very quickly.
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