What Do I Read to Babies?
Are you looking to support early literacy skills for your baby or a baby in your care? Or maybe you are looking to find the perfect gift for an upcoming baby shower?
Check out these recommendations from a speech pathologist/mom/book nerd
Reading books with a baby is one of best things you can do to support their overall development including language, attention, vision, and sleep. That’s right — SLEEP! Research has found that reading to children as part of their bedtime routine supports better sleep (check out the citation at the end).
The American Academy of Pediatrics and every pediatric speech therapist, myself included, will recommend reading to infants. But what kinds of books do we recommend? The short answer is simple — whatever you want and whatever the baby is interested in. That being said, some books are more beneficial, more interactive, less rippable (surprisingly important!) and overall more fun to read — especially given that you’ll be reading them over and over (and over, and over)!
As a speech pathologist and a parent of two curious children, I break down my recommendations into several helpful categories.
You can find clinical references for some of my recommendations at the bottom!
High-Contrast Books
Books with black and white shapes and patterns and stripes are great for infants. They help to stimulate an infant’s visual skills as the retina is not fully developed. As infants get older, high-contrast books with one photograph or drawing per page are ideal. The contrasting nature will capture their attention and encourage visual exploration.
This particular author and illustrator, Peter Linenthal, is known for his visually interesting high-contrast books. This is one of his most popular publications:
Books With Faces
Babies love to look at and explore faces. Current research tells us that babies are able to visually process faces before objects. Books that feature photographs of faces and babies making different facial expressions are great to promote visual skills and encourage imitation. In my own experience as a clinician and a mom, babies and young children will often prefer these books.
These recommendations are oldies but goodies! These very cute and culturally diverse books are sure to be favorites:
Sturdy Books
Books that are sturdy and waterproof allow babies to explore with their eyes, hands, and mouth. Many books in this category are soft, light, flexible and advertised to be drool-proof, chew-proof, rip-proof, washable and 100% nontoxic. This is important as babies often explore with their mouths and have difficulty with grading their movements. On more than one occasion, my kids have hit themselves in the face with a book when trying to taste it.
Warning: some of these books will be expensive but are well worth the price. These are the go-to books that I gift to new parents as a baby shower present as I know they will withstand the test of a baby’s rough play. I have washed both of these books multiple times and they were surprisingly good as new:
Book versions of songs
Infants love to listen to songs and rhymes and musical simulation helps to promote precursors to language and emotional development. Singing with a child also helps to promote listening skills. Pairing a book with a song is a great way to encourage vocabulary development as well. What is great with this category is that there are books featuring songs for all different genres and books are great way to introduce a baby to your favorite music.
There are many unique books featuring songs that make great gifts for birthdays and baby showers too. I learned, while researching for this blog, that there is a book version of a Fleetwood Mac song. It’s lucky for my husband that it was not published when my kids were babies or that would have been high in the rotation.
The takeaway message is that reading to infants is one of the most important things that a parent or caretaker can do to promote their development. Pick any book that you or your baby likes, cuddle up, and read it as part of your daily routine.
For more information, check out these resources:
