Babies love to touch and explore everything around them. Have you noticed how your tiny baby could not even open their palms at first but slowly started touching everything? Babies’ senses start developing as they grow. They develop and start using these senses to explore and understand the world around them. This is a good opportunity to buy touch and feel books for babies.
When it comes to books, it need not be just pages and pages of words and images. It can be a lot more. You can have sounds, holes, flaps, and textures too. Yes, textures can be a great addition to books. Your baby can touch, feel, understand and learn the name of what they are touching.
In This Article
- When Can You Introduce Touch And Feel Books to Your Baby?
- Benefits of Touch And Feel Books For Your Baby
- List of Top 8 Touch and Feel Books For Babies in First Year
- FAQ’s
When Can You Introduce Touch And Feel Books to Your Baby?
You can introduce touch and feel books to your baby at as early as 4 months of age. Though babies do not understand the pictures as such, their sense of touch is developing and so are their cognitive abilities. By this time, babies learn to grasp things and their sense of touch is improving too. Touch and feel books are an excellent choice for babies who cannot identify pictures. These are among the first type of books that you can buy for your munchkin
Benefits of Touch And Feel Books For Your Baby
Here are some of the top benefits that your baby can enjoy with the introduction of touch and feel books.
1. Improves Sense of Touch
Touching and feeling is one of the first senses that a baby develops. In fact, they love touching their mother’s face and feeling their presence in the initial months. With touch and feel books, your baby’s sense of touch gets the much-needed fuel. As they touch, they get to explore different textures and slowly understand that there can be different textures and learn more about them.
2. Encourages Exploration
Babies are exploratory by nature. They love to touch and feel everything and understand how things work. This increases their awareness of how the world around them functions. Touch and feel books are an excellent way to spark curiosity and encourage your baby’s understanding and exploration.
3. Makes Books A Fun Activity
It is said that the earlier you introduce books to your baby, the earlier they get into a reading habit. If you want to inculcate this healthy habit in your baby, books such as touch and feel are an excellent idea. Though your baby can’t read yet, the touch and feel panels and textures keep them glued to the books. As they grow, you can introduce a wider variety of interactive books allowing your baby to develop a natural interest in reading.
4. Improves Vocabulary
As your baby grows, they get better at associating textures with words they represent and remember them well. This will add to their repertoire of vocabulary
List of Top 8 Touch and Feel Books For Babies in First Year
If you are looking for some of the best touch-and-feel books to give your baby a sensorial experience while exploring their book, here is a list of the top 8 touch and feel books for your baby you can invest in.
1. Touch and Feelings: Happy Bunny by Dr. Naira Wilson
The book helps babies develop a sense of touch, teaches about feelings, and brings awareness about the self with the mirror. Babies love to look at shiny objects and touch different textures. Looking at a mirror and interacting with their own reflection is a developmental milestone and this book helps in that area. Being a hardboard book, it is suitable for babies who are teething and love to chew on random items too.
Summary
A simple book well-written by a child psychologist who addresses various sensorial needs in a developing child. The book has pages with different textures, addresses different feelings, and also has a mirror for your baby to look into and mimic those feelings.
2. Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt
This is the first-ever touch-and-feel book for babies and is a classic loved by all parents and kids. It is highly recommended by pediatricians and developmental experts for its sensory approach that helps in the overall development of the baby. It can be used for babies and young children who are still developing their sense of touch, language, speaking skills, etc.
Summary
It is a book filled with textures, hidden objects, and a lot more that can entertain a baby intellectually. It can teach a baby to touch, feel, and learn about textures, find the missing things and interact with the book. There are more such books in the series written by this author.
3. Peter the Rabbit Touch And Feel by Beatrix Potter
The book has 11 different textures for babies and children to touch, explore and understand. The illustrations are very charming and catch a baby’s attention and improve their interest in the book. This can improve your child’s reading habit and give a sensorial experience while telling them about all the naughty things the rabbit did, which is sure to crack them up as they get older.
Summary
The story is about the infamous Peter The Rabbit who goes through a garden and causes a lot of trouble. It starts with how the mother tells the bunnies to not go into the garden and get into trouble, but Peter goes in anyway. The author takes us through Peter rabbit’s mischievous adventure with different textures on different pages.
[Read : Reading to Your Baby]
4. Be Calmer, Llama! by Rosamund Lloyd
In this fast-paced world with increasing screen time for kids that sends their brain into a frenzy, this book helps calm them down. With reverse counting, the author helps babies become calmer, and teaches them a calming technique and to count. The llamas engage in different activities to help them calm down, on every page. Though babies may not understand the importance of slowing down and staying calm, these are techniques you can remind them about as they grow older and have tantrums.
Summary
The book takes us through various activities the llamas do, to slow down and keep themselves calm. It counts down from 5, thus helping babies learn the numbers and techniques to help them self-regulate. It also teaches them how slowing down can keep you stronger and help you do more.
5. Have You Ever Tickled a Tiger by Betsy Snider
Babies love to be ticked and the tickle game does not fail anytime you want to entertain a baby. This book takes the baby into the jungle with wild animals and their different textures. This can be a great addition to other touch-and-feel books that have regular textures like soft, rough, etc. The book also asks questions for babies to answer, which is a very impactful way of learning.
Summary
The author brings in wild animals from the jungle and introduces various textures for the baby to touch and feel. With rhyming words and different textures for different animals, babies can learn easily and remember well. It takes the baby through an entertaining sensorial journey with animals that are usually “dangerous”.
6. 10 Things I Love About You by Danielle McLean
This is a board book a baby can mouth and explore. Babies love to explore and understand everything around them by mouthing and touching. This book offers both. It also helps a baby realize their love for their parent and understand emotions, which is again an important developmental milestone.
Summary
The books take the baby through ten different reasons why a child loves their parent. Each page has a different reason and texture for the baby to experience. Since it is about a close bond between a parent and a child, young children can relate well and understand what the author is trying to say. This book can help in both sensorial and language developments in a baby.
7. The Touch Book by Nicola Edwards
A sensory book to explore for young hands and minds. Babies explore their surroundings by touching and understanding textures. This book offers just that. It is inspired by the Montessori method and encourages both sense of touch and imagination in a baby. The book will help your baby improve vocabulary, understand textures and improve imagination.
Summary
The book gives babies a chance to squish, touch different textures, and learn the names of the same. Every texture belongs to a different character, which also helps the baby understand what each of those characters will feel like, to touch. For example – the squishy sea sponge and rough tree bark.
8. Curious George at the Zoo by H.A.Rey
Babies love to explore, especially when told not to do something. George is a curious monkey who does just that. Children can relate well to this and find it very entertaining to read about a monkey who does what they would try to. Babies will learn about textures and names of the animals and relate a texture with each animal. It can improve their vocabulary too.
Summary
The story is about the naughty little monkey – George who ventures into a zoo. The author narrates what George sees and experiences, along with patches for the baby to touch and feel. George wanders off on his own despite being told not to, just like any child would try to. The author names every animal he encounters and highlights one feature about the animal with the texture.
Touch is an important sensorial development for babies. Helping them develop this in an interesting manner, which can also help improve their reading and vocabulary is vital. You can touch and feel books for your baby and they can use them for the next few years. These books are the perfect gift for babies or even a 1st birthday.
[Read : Baby’s Sense of Touch Development]
FAQ’s
1. Why Are Touch and Feel Books Good For My Baby?
In addition to introducing your baby to new words, concepts, or language, touch-and-feel books introduce them to textures too. It stimulates their senses and helps develop their sense of touch. Touch is an important sensorial development for a growing baby and such books can help achieve this.
2. How Do Babies Learn From Touch and Feel Books?
Babies touch and explore their surroundings. They touch and understand everything with the way the touch makes them feel. It can be soft, rough, ticklish, etc. When they touch and explore a book and learn the names for that texture, it aids in overall development. They form an understanding of everything around them, in their own way.
3. Why Should I Invest in Touch and Feel Books For My Baby?
Babies learn faster when they can associate the term you are teaching them with something physical. When a book page has a soft texture, it is easier for them to learn the name rather than you trying to explain what “soft” is. When they touch and explore, they learn and develop a sense of like or dislike towards that texture, which is again an important milestone in a baby’s development.
