Your Baby: 0-18 Months
- A newborn: Listens and reacts to your voice and other sounds. Enjoys listening to stories. Responds to words, rhymes and songs by cooing, gurgling, and smiling. Bonds with you—becomes emotionally close.
- 6-12 months: Shows emotions of love, frustration and distress. Begins to crawl. Reaches for books and pats pictures. Likes being close to family. Plays with sounds and babbles. Can play peek-a-boo. Waves arms and kicks feet to show excitement. Enjoys reading with a favorite person.
- 12-18 months: Understands and says simple words. Understands and reacts to hand movements, faces, and changes in tone of voice. Says simple words, such as "Da da." Puts books in his/her mouth. Turns pages of sturdy books. Likes having the same books repeated.
As you read to your baby:
Hold your little one on your lap and snuggle, use a lot of eye contact and voice inflection. Smile, relax and enjoy. Let your baby know you think books and reading are fun. Enjoy knowing that you are encouraging brain development as you read, sing and talk to your baby.
At this age, your child needs to hear language and experience its rhythm, rhyme, vocabulary and syntax. You want your child to hear your voice and hear its inflections, which stimulate his or her brain to make the neural connections. Your child is also absorbing the social context of your interaction—cheerfulness, pleasure, stress, or anger. Positive emotions and experiences are important. Read with your child at a regular time every day and whenever he/she asks you, if possible.
Other things you can do are:
- Talk often to your baby about what you are doing and about how much you love him/her
- Sing songs and say poems
- Choose brightly colored board or plastic books to taste and feel
- Put mobiles and pictures around the crib
- Play classical music
- Choose books about familiar objects-bottles, balls
- Play games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake
- Maintain eye contact and smile
- Point to pictures and name things
Books for children 0 - 12 months
- Animals On The Farm by Feodor Rojankovsky
- Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton
- The Real Mother Goose by Blanche Fisher Wright
- All Fall Down by Helen Oxenbury
- Black On White by Tana Hoban
- Goodnight Moon by Margret Wise Brown
- Peek-a-Boo! by Janet and Allen Ahlberg
- How Baby Grows by Stella Blackstone
- My First Baby Games by Jane Manning
Books for children 12 - 18 months
- Moon Bear by Frank Asch
- Jamberry by Bruce Degen
- Where's Spot by Eric Hill
- Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joose
- Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats
- Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt
- Clap Hands by Helen Oxenbury
- Show Me! by Tom Tracy
- I Love Colors by Margaret Miller
