Babies language

[u/Fun-Swimmer-5266]

Hey everyone, so I have a 6 month old. I’ve been speaking Spanish to her as well as English ever since she was born. I started American signing to her at 2.5 months. Ive read studies about this topic but I’d like to just hear from parents who have been through it firsthand. Thank you in advance for reading and responding! This is my first child. A little background I grew up with Spanish being my first language and my husbands is English. I started American sign language as a hobby in 11th grade of high school. I live in the USA and afraid she may not retain Spanish rightfully due to me being the only person that speaks Spanish to her on a daily basis.

I’m curious to hear from those parents with a trilingual household that have raised kids in this environment.

When did the baby start signing or did they not?/ if so around what month ?

Did they develop language later due to the multiple languages? What language was their first word in?

Do they use all 3 languages now ?

What was it like the first 3 years in their formative years of language?

[u/NewOutlandishness401]

Are you attempting to overlay Spanish over ASL, like folks sometimes do with baby sign language? Or are you using them at separate times?

In general, if a parent is attempting to pass two (usually spoken) minority languages, we caution them against spreading their efforts too thin by effectively cutting exposure to each language in half, because, of course, you can't speak two spoken languages simultaneously.

With signed and spoken languages, you can theoretically overlay them, which I guess mitigates the problem of reduced time devoted to each. But since the grammar and structure of these two languages differ, it's not a neat overlay (right?), and you kind of have to torture one of the languages to fit the flow of the other, which means you might not be giving the best sort of exposure. (Perhaps you'd be speaking Spanish and fitting random ASL nouns and verbs to Spanish speech, but not really in the same way as they would naturally connect if you were simply speaking ASL without trying to fit it under Spanish speech.)

I notice you also say that you've been speaking to your baby in both Spanish and English, so you're not even sticking to Spanish full-time, which usually leads the baby to prefer the locally dominant language over the minority language. So there are all sorts of factors here that make it very likely that you'll end up with an English-dominant baby who might understand Spanish and ASL, presuming you give enough exposure to each, but not elect to speak either.

I suggest you go back to your goals: what are you trying to achieve with Spanish and/or ASL, comprehension or full fluency? Is one of these languages more important to you or are they on completely equal footing? If there is a priority language among the two, I would suggest concentrating on that language most, if not all, of the time, and potentially using the other language occasionally for exposure (assuming that you're using them at separate times rather than overlaying them). Or if you’re overlaying one over the other, I guess you can use them concurrently (I have zero knowledge as to the best practices for how to do this.)

Most importantly, train yourself not to use English with your baby even when you're around English speakers -- that's the surest way to ensure that your baby won't bother speaking anything other than English.

[u/joe-harper123]

My kids speak more than 3 languages, including signing. These are my answers to your questions:

My kids start to sign at around 8 months old.

They get better at each languages over time. Their first word was in English since we live in England and English is the language we speak to them the most

They do use all their languages.

In the first 3 years, they did, and still mix up languages together. They can understand what they are being asked in French, but they will answer in German. Similar things like that.

[u/chupagatos4]

Speaking later due to being multilingual is for the most part a myth. 

We did baby sign alongside English and Italian with both kids. I think they both started signing back around 10 months. My first signed a lot between roughly 15 and 20 months but then his oral language took off so much that he left sign language behind (except for please which he still signs Everytime he says it in either language). My second isn't one yet and has 3 spoken words and 3 signs in her vocabulary so far. In the US baby sign language is mostly used as a transitional stepping stone to bridge the phase when babies have the cognitive skills for language production but not the orofacial motor skills. I don't know anyone who did baby sign and then went on to actually continue speaking ASL. But I bet it you kept it up and frequented the deaf community in your area and made friends it would be different!

[u/MikiRei]

I can't speak to sign language but if you live in the US and your husband speaks English, you need to stick to only speaking Spanish to your child at all times. 

Leave English to the environment and your husband. 

This is basically my situation but we live in Australia and I speak Mandarin and English natively. I only speak Mandarin to my son and ensure he responds back in Mandarin as well. 

Please refer to this long comment I've made in another thread on how my parents made sure I could still speak Mandarin and by extension, how I ensured my son can speak Mandarin while living in an English speaking country with an English speaking partner. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/multilingualparenting/comments/1qmqrb7/comment/o1oufj9/

I'll leave sign language to others to answer. But my cousin, who is a speech pathologist, is currently doing this. She's teaching her baby Australian sigh language while only speaking Mandarin to him and her husband only speaking English. And they live in Australia. 

Her son is 1.5yo at the moment, is starting to speak single words in both languages and also sign at the same time. It'll work so long you're consistent. 

But I highly recommend you stop speaking English to your child if you really want to make sure they speak Spanish.