Baby Signs Can Help with Safety

posted 12/14/22 -- LCCAA’s Early Head Start has introduced the Baby Signs program this year. Signs can help keep children safe and healthy. Some examples were recently shared in the program’s “At Home” newsletter.

Signs for “hot” or “hurt” can help even the youngest child communicate about illnesses or injuries or avoid accidents.

Signs and Safety—Stop, Look, and Listen! Signs can help keep children safe and healthy. Here are some examples:

Safety signs can help babies tell you when they are sick. For example, the sign for hot can indicate a fever. In addition, the sign for hurt made next to the ear can indicate an earache or made near the stomach can indicate a belly ache.

Safety also has to do with helping avoid accidents. For example, the signhot can be used by babies to indicate that their food or their bath water is too hot. And the sign for dirty can add emphasis when children are warned against eating or playing with unsanitary things.

When you use the sign gentle, it can help calm your child’s fear during temperature taking, wound cleaning, or bandage application. And then, when your child is familiar enough with gentle to use it on her own, she can tell you when you need to treat her a bit more tenderly.

Babies can use the sign for stop to let adults know when they are being overwhelmed (like being tickled too hard) and use the sign for help anytime some assistance is needed (like needing help to climb onto a chair or get a toy).

BABY SIGNS® STORY: A “Low Blow” that Paid Off!

Little Keegan loved the baby pool at the local park, so he wasn’t pleased about getting out to go to the restroom. But toddle along he did, holding onto his mom’s hand. Suddenly, however, he began to cry and pull back. Glancing at his face, his mom saw he was also doing his sign for HOT (blowing). It seems they had just crossed from the grass to the concrete. She had flip-flops on, but he did not. “Oh! Your feet are burning!” she said as she scooped him into her arms and kissed him.

But what if he hadn’t had the sign? It’s quite possible that his mom would have misinterpreted his crying as resistance to leaving the pool and insisted he continue walking. What a different outcome that would have been!