Am I missing anything?

[Satstar]

I have a 7 month old baby. I have never been around many babies or had many in family etc and had a very difficult pregnancy and traumatic birth that i have only just recovered from. Because of this I never really looked into what I should be doing or read many baby books etc

From a couple of weeks old we did lots of tummy time with him and he rolled over at 2.5 months, and a few weeks ago started crawling and can now pull up to standing in his cot, onto sofa etc so have no physical developmental concerns

However one thing that I haven't really thought of is how to help him develop his understanding of words and helping him to speak and Listen

Obviously we talk to him and I sometimes sing to him but is there anything else I could or should be doing?

I would love to try and read to him but whenever I try he just wants to get the book and put it to his mouth etc. He hates being still and just wants to be on the move most of the time

I saw a post recently that said a 10 month old.was able to pass items when being asked. I can't imagine that will happen with us any time soon..

So is there anything I could be doing to help him with his understanding of words etc?

Thank you x

Talk and gesture to things whilst saying the word. Get touchy feely books with one word and a picture per page.

The black and white baby books are good as they seem to hold their attention more and touchy feel books as the PP said.

You could also try some simple signs like milk and more. So you'd say "do you want more?" And sign more at same time. I did this with my first and it's surprising how quickly their speech can develop.

Just talk and sing relentlessly til you're driving yourself mad lol. Eg when mine was a baby whilst I had her in her highchair fixing lunch up I'd do running commentry of what I was doing (I'm getting this cheese out of the fridge, I'm just popping this pot into the dishwasher because it's dirty blah blah blah) I think with books choose your moments. Only once in a blue moon would mine sit quietly and read a book but we still fit lots of reading time in as we read them at bed time and we snuggle up together during snack time and read them. I agree with the above though that simple books and ones that are tough and hard Re best initially. Flash cards are also good. Make sure you give him chance to answer you back too as this is just as important a part of speech development. A website called www.teachmetotalk.com has some really good podcasts about speech development etc and is worth a look. I'm sure you're doing great x

Also 10 months looks very different from 7 months.