Hello from a proud auntie of a Deaf baby

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Salles

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Hello everybody :wave:

I don't know whether I should post this in the parenting section, but as I am new I will post here (mods please feel free to move this post if you think it should be somewhere else).

I have just got off the phone to my brother. He is the dad of a premature baby who is doing very well (he is now nearly 4 months!). My nephew's hearing test came back today and it has shown he is profoundly deaf.

The family is very excited at the new and fun experiences we will have with our Little One and I am here to find out information about how we should help him with his communications skills.

Of course, he is very tiny and we are communicating already with cuddles and face expressions. When should we start using signs?

I am very excited about signing with him when he's older!

Love and thanks in advance :cool2:
 
Wow, it's great to hear that your family is actually excited and looking forward to raising a deaf child! Most hearing families' reactions are the complete opposite. It's very refreshing to read your post.

Start signing immediately with the child. Just like a family would talk to a hearing baby immediately, you can do the same with a deaf baby.

Good luck and welcome to AD!
 
Thank you everybody for your welcomes!

Yes, we are excited, his life will be very different than we expected but we couldn't be happier with him :) :)

It will be quite an adventure learning to communicate with him. I kind of knew that he might not be able to hear as he never responded to any sounds in the hospital and he could sleep through anything!

This is actually a very nice surprise, we have a baby with a different culture in our family now and I can't wait to see him grow.

I will have to practise my signing now, I have been on the internet looking for baby signing. We are British and I know a lot of you here on this site are American, but I imagine a lot of baby signs (pre-alphabet) are quite similar? Or is that a misconception?

I have a lot to learn, thank you for your quick responses xx
 
Hello overthepond, of course, you wouldn't not talk to a baby would you? My mind's still going a million miles an hour.

Kristina, those links are ace, I have saved them to my favourites.

:)
 
:welcome: to AllDeaf forum. TheWriteAlex is correct when we have hearing parents regretting to have a deaf or hard of hearing child. You must be the first family that are excited to have a deaf child. Weird. Now you are anxious to learn about the baby signs. You can start with expressions and touching like letting the baby know you are there. Just remember don't use the voice for cooing or baby talk as he can not hear you. Just have fun with the baby. Tell your brother, Congratulation on having a newborn, even he is 4 months old. :party:

Have fun reading and posting all the threads here. See you around here. :wave:
 
Bebonang, It's doesn't matter if she uses her voice when cooing/baby talk, it's the facial expressions whlist "cooing" is good for the baby to recongise a person's expressions/feelings also it encourages them to look at their face when "communicating" in any sort of lang (sign or mother's tounge) and it a step to lipreading too.
 
Bebonang said:
You must be the first family that are excited to have a deaf child. Weird.
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I know, maybe I worded it wrong. We are just excited to have him here at all, he was very early and very poorly, he had surgery at a week old and we didn't know whether he would come this far. His deafness is just another thing that makes him our very special little baby. We are now facing a different journey than we thought, but it is not bad news for us. We just want to help him be happy and I am very excited about watching him grow up.
 
Welcome to AllDeaf. Hope you enjoy spending time with him.

This link below is bit too early to use it with him but you could learn ahead and ready when he is bit older. This website got well known babies and young kids stories books and they are in BSL, pictures, text and voice, enjoy looking through them yourself.

Signed Stories
 
Speedy Hawk said:
Welcome to AllDeaf. Hope you enjoy spending time with him.

This link below is bit too early to use it with him but you could learn ahead and ready when he is bit older. This website got well known babies and young kids stories books and they are in BSL, pictures, text and voice, enjoy looking through them yourself.

Signed Stories
Click to expand...

How do you know if she is from England? What if she is from USA where they have ASL or Australia where they have Auslan (almost same like BSL). Or any other country for sign language. I looked up in her PM profile and don't see where she is from. :hmm:
 
Salles said:
PS all our family is Hearing, but we know a little bit of BSL
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:Oops: I found it in one of the thread here. Sorry. So Salles, you do know BSL even a little bit with all your family. So you are all from England. Right? :hmm:
 
Salles said:
Thank you everybody for your welcomes!

Yes, we are excited, his life will be very different than we expected but we couldn't be happier with him :) :)

It will be quite an adventure learning to communicate with him. I kind of knew that he might not be able to hear as he never responded to any sounds in the hospital and he could sleep through anything!

This is actually a very nice surprise, we have a baby with a different culture in our family now and I can't wait to see him grow.

I will have to practise my signing now, I have been on the internet looking for baby signing. We are British and I know a lot of you here on this site are American, but I imagine a lot of baby signs (pre-alphabet) are quite similar? Or is that a misconception?

I have a lot to learn, thank you for your quick responses xx
Click to expand...

Bebonang said:
How do you know if she is from England? What if she is from USA where they have ASL or Australia where they have Auslan (almost same like BSL). Or any other country for sign language. I looked up in her PM profile and don't see where she is from. :hmm:
Click to expand...
In the bolded it says British.
 
Bebonang said:
:Oops: I feel like wanting to hide under my blanket because I am so ashame of myself for not reading carefully. I gotcha what you point out in the bold. Oh, my. :naughty:
Click to expand...

:lol: I don't think you should be. I just have a good memory.
 
Welcome to AD. Doesn't matter if you use a voice and BSL at the same time. I don't know any BSL. But I'm aware that it requires to use both hands for fingerspelling unlike ASL (use only one hand and it's much easier, LOL.) I'm from here in US of A. I was born severely/profoundly deaf and my hearing parents did not regret when they found out that I was Deaf. My older brother is also Deaf. So they used ASL to communicate with me after I was born. I remember that they told me I signed cookie, milk, cat, ball, etc. just before I was 15 months old. I started schooling at 16 months old.
 
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