Choosing Books For Babies

Reading to kids is an important activity to teach them about books and how language works. Read consistently to your child to help nurture a love of books in them and to help create a solid basis for learning to speak and read as they get older. It’s never too early to start reading to your child. Start reading as early as you can and like.

Choosing books for a baby is a little different than choosing books for a toddler. Obviously, choosing a book that you really enjoy reading is not going to be enjoyable for a young child in general. They are going to need some type of visual stimulation in their books. Furthermore, attention spans won’t be super long for babies and toddlers, so you want something that allows the pages to be turned quickly.

Considerations for Infants: Birth to 6 Months

For brand new babies, you should choose books that contain large pictures and that are bright and bold. Ideally they have a contrasting background. Your baby is learning about the world and how it works, and a lot of times they’re not going to understand what they are looking at. Books that allow for easily seeing the image on the page is important.

You don’t need books with a lot of words. Anything with just a few words is fine. This allows your child to see a picture and for you to speak very simple words and phrases to them. They’re going to be putting together the pictures and words as they grow, but don’t overwhelm them with too much information to start. Kids also generally enjoy rhyming and songs. Books that follow this pattern also usually work well for this young age.

Books that are made of cardboard or cloth are best for this age. While you’ll be holding the books a lot of the time, they will start to want to see the book as they get older. Ultimately, the book is going to go into the mouth at some point so you want a book that won’t be completely destroyed by this.

Considerations for Babies: 7 to 12 Months

As your baby continues to grow, they’ll continue to enjoy many of the same books that you’ve been reading. You can start to introduce more complex books as well. It’s possible and likely that your baby will be able to start connecting things in books with the real world as they get older, especially if you’ve been reading consistently to them.

Continue to use books with large pictures that are bright and colorful. Adding books with one to two sentences per page is great for this age. They’ll have more attention than a young baby and they will understand more of what is being read (although they may not acknowledge it). Continue to use cardboard and cloth books as everything is in the mouth at this age.

As your child gets closer to one year, you can work on pointing to the pictures in the book and ask your child what the picture is. Tell them to look at it, ask them what it is, and wait for any type of response. It may be an animal or truck or something else that they’re familiar with. Not all kids will be able to respond, but you’ll likely find that some pictures get them more excited than others - a sign that they’re understanding what this item is but they can’t verbally express it. Make sure to tell them what the item is after asking them about it so that they know for the future.

Considerations for Babies:: 12 to 18 months

By this age, your baby should be able to sit with you while you look and read books. They may not have a long attention span, but they should be able to physically do this. If they bring a book to you on their own, try your best to read the book that they’re asking for - this is a good sign as it means they are enjoying what they’re finding and seeing in the books.

Books can be quite a bit more complex at this age as well - you’ll still want to make sure there are familiar items and characters in the books, but they can also include action and more than one or two items per page. Your baby will likely be excited for some pictures more than others and should be able to point to the different items in the book.

When reading, make sure that you’re reading the words that are on the page, but also feel free to add your own words and sounds as well. If looking at an animal book, help your child to know what sounds the animals make. It’s very possible that they’ll make the sounds with you when you do this, especially as they repeat the same books or learn the different animals better.

By this age, a child will be able to look at books on their own and flip the pages. You may find that they’ll open a book and make some of the sounds from the book as well. Not all kids will do this, but it’s definitely possible and one of those joyous moments as a parent when they do - your child is learning and you’re seeing it in action.

Conclusion

Reading to a new baby is important to teach them about words and language. Read to them as much as you can, and choose books that will help them learn.