Baby screams and shrieks at books and tries to tear pages

[theotherfossilsister]

He's five and a half months old, and we'd love to read to him. We have lots of picture books and try and point at things, talk about the pictures etc, engage him. What are we doing wrong?

Just wait till he chews up newspapers 😄

The Gruffalo is aimed at 4 year olds. 5 month old babies have attention spans of about 30-60 seconds

I doubt babies this young get fiction, and factual books probably won't make much sense till they've got a bit more comprehension of the real world. E.g. they may love a 'peekaboo baby' type book when they've got to the stage of finding playing peekaboo wildly entertaining, but probably a bit pointless before then. I can't remember when I started reading stories to my DD - probably did more singing nursery rhymes, and then telling simple stories such as the three little piggies with a lot of huffing and puffing.

You’re expecting too much of him at the moment. Let him interact with things as he naturally does, he’ll be more interested in the Gruffalo etc when he’s older. My 1 year old is now really into That’s Not My… books currently, when I read the Gruffalo of Mog, we all know I’m pretty much reading it to myself, she’s busy pulling all of her pyjamas out of the drawer.

My son was like that at that age. Almost 18 months now and he absolutely loves books

In the meantime, use lots of board books until your child is ready for pages

At 5 months a baby generally isn’t going to sit there and look at a book. Many babies can’t sit though a book with too many words at 15 months never mind 5!!

Manage your expectations. He’s a baby.

Thank you all. I'm going to get some 'That's not my' books and see if he likes those, plus let him interact on his own terms