The Only Piece of Direct Advice New Parents Will Get from Me
A great way to help your baby boost her growth.
Becoming a mother is awfully scary — this is undeniable. There is so much advice online about all matters of parenting and I scoured through a lot of it. There is also the added advice from family and friends that one will consider.
Making decisions for my son was and continues to be the most difficult thing about life because I’m dealing with a whole human being who may or may not benefit from whatever it is I am trying to achieve.
- Does sleep training scar your baby?
- Is breastfeeding actually best?
- How much childproofing?
- Which cot, car seat, carrier, buggy?
- How do I genuinely keep my child psychologically and emotionally healthy?
- Do I keep my hair long or short?
- Do I stop wearing perfume?
- How much coffee am I really allowed? Like is 3 cups okay?
It’s overwhelming, really, how many questions there are to be answered, even before the baby is here. I could write a book on that. Heck, maybe I will.
The struggles a new mother goes through are endless. The anxiety she’ll feel and the insecurities about every decision she’ll make for her baby will be questioned and judged no matter how well she’s seemingly doing, adding to her anxiety.
I don’t have all the answers, and I will always tell mothers that they know their baby best so to really trust their gut. I have once or twice listened to others’ advice and secretly been very glad when that approach didn’t work on my son because it confirms I should’ve gone with my instinct instead.
I know there are things I’ve done that others have disagreed with, and I’ve learned to be okay with that. It’s completely normal for each parent to make different choices for their baby.
There is one thing, however, I will 100% recommend and maybe even try to convince a new parent to do. I know, I know, completely hypocritical considering how blunt I am about others staying out of my business.
I don’t say this lightly because I would usually never try to convince anyone to do anything when it came to parenting. The pressures are enough without me adding to them. So the fact I am saying it means how strongly I feel about it, and I would ask new parents to consider it.
Use Sign Language
It turns out, babies can communicate way before they can speak. If they can do that, it means babies have an understanding of so much more than we give them credit for!
Other than being worried for my sanity because I knew I would lose a lot of sleep, I became worried about the things I would *do* with him. How do you entertain a baby? How do you teach a baby to do things, like play, eat, talk?
Babies are really clever and they learn a lot on their own. We don’t have to have a schedule or a lesson plan in order to be a great parent, we just need to provide a good learning environment. This may include:
- A really good routine, whether it be in the morning, throughout the day, or in the evening.
- A couple of socialising events each week that may involve classes for babies or meeting up with friends.
- Most importantly for me, feeling good (your baby feels what you feel, FYI).
This is when I found a local Sing and Sign class.
Babies are learning from day 1.
Education in babies is undervalued because it is misunderstood.
Babies are being educated from the moment they are born and we don’t even do it officially.
Signing is a language booster. We know babies can communicate before they can speak because even if they don’t sign words, they can point. If they can look at an object and know that they want it, they know what it is and can associate it to a word. They just can’t say that word. They use a gesture because we know they can make hand gestures (clapping, pointing, patting head, etc).
“Better communication, in turn, leads to smoother interactions and fewer frustrations (for both of you). It also boosts baby’s confidence as a communicator (“they get me!”), which spurs his motivation to keep communicating — first through signs, then through a mix of signs and sounds, and ultimately through words.” — from whattoexpect.com
We would just be enabling their learning more with signing.
My son shows the results.
My son could sign “milk” at 6 months of age.
He could sign “finished” by 9 months.
Now, at 18 months of age, he can tell me if he’s hot, if the food is good, he can sign a tonne of animals and colours, as well as saying a few words here and there.
Imagine how many tantrums could be prevented if babies could just sign their need or want to you and you responded almost immediately?! Half the time your baby is frustrated because she can’t make herself understood! Isn’t it fascinating?
My husband was very dubious about signing at first and he thought when Andriel started signing certain words, that he was either copying the gestures without understanding what it meant or not actually signing because they didn’t look exactly like the signs.
Until he saw him signing in context. Multiple times.
Andriel would tell us he was done with his food and then protest if we tried to give him more. Trust me, my husband tested this out and a tantrum or two was had because of it!
He would tell us he wanted a cookie and then get really excited when I got the cookies out of the cupboard.
He told me the bathwater was too cold and then tested it out when I added hot water.
I repeat — he is 18 months old.
What’s really amazing is seeing our son get so excited when he knows he’s made himself understood. He feels encouraged to learn more.
It boosts speech, too.
I know other children who were taken to the same classes and instead of signing, they started speaking at a really young age. Signing helps boost their speech, too! This was vital for my son because he’s growing up bilingual and I was worried he would struggle to learn two languages at once. Using the same sign for two words in two languages helps my son further understand them.
Some people think I’m being the smug parent for showing off how intelligent my child is, but it’s not that — every child has the potential to communicate if they’re given the right tools! (OK, *maybe* I am the smug parent sometimes but it’s all love!)?
You don’t need to learn any official sign language if you don’t want to – as long as you keep things simple and consistent with your baby.
This shows yet again how important communication is within our society. Communication in all its forms. I wish Signing classes were funded by governments and handed out to new parents and babies for free. Our babies develop these skills way before they can speak, so we should enable them to show us how clever they all really are.
Sylvia Emokpae, thinker and philosopher, is passionate about motherhood, self-love, and pro-race. See more work like this.
