If your baby can understand that " elephant" says " elephant" then they can understand that "b" says "buh" too. It's perfectly logical. Teach them the phonics sounds now and you won't need to later. It doesn't matter if they learn to read whole words as babies, eventually they need the phonics to learn spelling so definitely teach them now. Little children sometimes take a while to clue onto sounding out words and blending but that never stopped us teaching them
The iPad version of LR is a little different, but you can use both successfully. Use one on the computer int he morning and show the iPad version of the lesson throughout the day when you are more mobile.
As to the games well, you could do them and just get excited when " you" get the correct answer. Or skip it til babyis older.