Baby Toys: books

From the earliest weeks you can read to your baby – it provides a sing-song tone to your reassuring voice. With crinkly or squeaky pages, these can also be played with as gently stimulating first cuddly toys.

Once your baby can sit up (usually from around 7 to 9 months) invite your baby to handle boardbooks – Ladybird books often come with textured surfaces, dials, mirrors and other touchable attractions for this age – or you can both look at boardbooks with real photos in. By about 11 months your child might be able to start pointing to images with you.

There are also plastic-page books that are more like an interactive toy than anything else. At first, you can use these to share colours, sounds, patterns and lights with your baby, but by the time she can sit up, she will enjoy handling these herself. They will continue to charm into the toddler years.

Tiny Love Touch and Discover Book, £15, 6mths+ A multi-stage book in which your baby can interact with animal characters. Your child can activate the electronic butterfly to initiate animal sounds and lights. There are three different scenes and the chance to play peek-a-boo. www.hamleys.com	Slide ’n’ Learn Storybook, £14.99, 6mths+ With a Winnie the Pooh theme, this interactive story features six beautifully illustrated, easy to clean, hard plastic pages. Concepts include opposites and the chance to enjoy nursery rhyme tunes. www.vtechuk.com	Singing nursery rhyme book, £10.50, 6mths+ From the Early Learning Centre V-Tech collection, this is a slide and twist nursery rhyme book and includes a soothing night light as well as pretty, familiar tunes. www.debenhams.com
Ladybird Big Noisy Book: Emergency! £9.99, 6mths+ Suitable up to about three years, this book includes detailed pictures of rescue vehicles including a fire engine, police car, ambulance and helicopter and it features eight sound buttons. www.waterstones.com	Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn books, £9.99 6mths+ Choose from Teddy’s Shapes and Colours (Red) or Counting Animal Friends (Blue). Both offer the chance to get to know important early learning themes. www.mothercare.com	Noisy Touchy-feely Santa, £12.99, 9mths+ There’s plenty of colourful, sparkly fun in this festive story with easy to press sound buttons – Santa’s jolly laugh, his sleigh speeding through the sky, his boots crunching in the snow, the ticking of clocks and a rendition of Jingle Bells. www.usborne.com