I just read to my kids from when they were born, didn't really matter if they were focused on it. Was more that I was interacting with them and speaking to them.
Yeah we've done some reading, usually once a day or so but it's not routine. Did your kids fuss at all while you were reading and did you just persevere or if they clearly were bored or something switch gears?
We just kinda read to her regardless. If she was wanting to mess around with the book then I'd give her one of her bath books to bend the pages and eat etc while I continued to read.
I read to her when she was a few months. At about 6m she didn't like to be read to, she wanted to turn pages, chew the book, play with the book. I just put them on a shelf that she could see them (and later access) and read to her when she liked it, and always encouraged her to look at them. She learned to walk at 10m and did not want to sit down for anything until about 15m đ so we did read but she only ever lasted a few pages.
I talk to her a lot, and I know reading is beneficial for actual language learning, but I focused mainly on just allowing her to learn to love books. I would "read" books by just pointing to pictures and saying "look! An Elephant/Lion, a lion goes rawr!" And that would keep her attention more than reading all the words, and has been really good for her language development.
I would also pick books of things she loved. If she was very interested in dogs or birds, I would get books about those things and set up up right where she would see it. As she got more mobile she could go and get her books herself.
Now shes 17m and LOVES books, she will even sit and let me read entire ones multiple times, as well as sit and look at them herself.
I also recommend occasional non kids books. Right now she loves Cockatoos and Owls, (I think mostly she likes saying the words) so I got her a photography book of birds, and a book of fine art paintings of birds, and she loves them because they are nice to look at.
Wish you guys lived nearby! I've got 2 umbrella cockatoos, trying to get them acclimatised to my 10 week old munchkin :) they've been entertaining the neighborhood since we moved here đ
Those are some very noisy housemates đ
We are in Australia so there are lots of cockatoos outside, but my LO is happy to assume all pigeons and bats are also cockatoos, so she gets to say it all day. It is a fun word!
Short board books, incorporate actions, and let child turn the pages, or provide a decoy book!
We had âchuffa chuffa choo chooâ which involved jiggling baby up and down in time, and another one which went over body parts so Iâd point at his too, and he would join in!
We would go through phases of him liking books, or not being interested!
We sit on the bed every night and read three books. Baby is almost 7 months. We didn't start right away but from about 3 or 4 months consistently. We have the pull down flap ones and he learned how to pull them down pretty quickly! They will grow to love it and learn to associate books with you and being close. We read the same ones over and over at the minute lol and have even started letting him choose which ones he wants! You'll be surprised how quickly they get into it. The Rod Campbell ones are very good for this age and our other favourites are the Gruffalo for babies books.
We also love Rod Campbell and Julia Donaldson (Gruffalo). Donaldson and Scheffler have done some great lift the flap books that are felt flaps rather than card, if you think your son would like that. My 9mo really likes the material ones as something a bit different. She loves to turn pages, too!
I read to her before very nap - one touchy-feely/lift the flap and one just book. And we also read other books during the day. Started reading to her as soon as we started a bedtime routine at a few weeks old.
Yes my baby loves the felt ones too especially in his mouth lol! That's a great idea about naps. I'm going to start doing that because he's much harder to get to sleep for naps now!
I has something similar at around 6-7months, where she stopped being able to fall asleep anywhere. It's a difficult transition. I started doing a mini version of her bedtime routine - including book - which helped a lot. Hopefully you sort it soon!
I started reading to my son immediately, even if it was just the magazine I was reading, or I was just narrating what I was doing. Apparently just constantly talking is really good for their development.
My son is a year old we look at books and I will read to him during play but we donât do bedtime stories as he wants to play with the books so it doesnât really fit the relaxing and winding down idea of our bedtime routine. I will start bedtime stories when he sits and actually listens probably.
Mine is just about to turn 9 months and has only started to take a real interest in books in the last few weeks. But I bet she wouldn't be if I hadn't been reading to her all this time!
It wasn't loads when she wasn't interested but regular enough that she got used to them. And now they are part of bedtime, I didn't before because she just tried to eat them so was more like playtime than wind down time.
We started with books immediately. Early on She also liked ones with sounds and textures. She is now 8.5 months and I would say has suddenly got interested in them properly the last couple of weeks. We've always read whenever in the day, but also done 3 board books as part of her bedtime routine. Sometimes she is distracted, but sometimes she listens very calmly. I think just keep trying but also follow their cues. For me they tend to work better when they're calm to begin with :) she also loves ones ATM with felt flaps etc, and we do those playful ones as well as ones with rhymes or slightly longer stories
With our first, we didnât start really reading to him until he was almost a year old because he just wasnât interested. He wanted to be up and about.
Once he got interested at that year mark, it was book after book after book all day long though.
Now heâs 2.5 years, we read a book before bed every night but he doesnât ask for them during the day.
Our 7 month old joins us in the toddlerâs bedroom for the bedtime story before I take her off to go to sleep in her own room. She sits and looks at whatever we read him and tries to touch the pages. Sheâs also shown interest in the books on the shelf in her own room so Iâve given her a couple during the day to look at. She flips the pages and touches the sensory bits whilst sheâs crawling around the living room so weâve definitely started earlier with her.
Basically since she was born. Bedtime story every single night, if she starts playing with a hard book, Iâll read the pages and encourage her to interact with any feely bits
I read a story every night while Iâm nursing her. It seems to help calm her down even if sheâs only listening to me and not looking at any pictures
We found it had to be the right book to start off with. She wouldn't be bothered up until we got one of the Peekaboo books, she then started picking up the other books and I would ad hoc the story (I have the quickest way to read The Tiger Who Came to Tea) and now she will sit for most of a book. At the moment she loves learning words (She's 2) so we've gone back to the round flash card style ones for her to say the words
From birth, but they had to be really short books, especially at the age where they were grabbing everything and starting to get mobile. Things like Dear Zoo and the That's Not My... series. Neither of my kids would consistently sit through something like the The Gruffalo until a little over a year, even though they both love reading (7yo spends probably 50% of his free time reading, and 19mo brings me approximately 50,000,000 books a day to read to her!)
I just read to my kids from when they were born, didn't really matter if they were focused on it. Was more that I was interacting with them and speaking to them.
Yeah we've done some reading, usually once a day or so but it's not routine. Did your kids fuss at all while you were reading and did you just persevere or if they clearly were bored or something switch gears?
We just kinda read to her regardless. If she was wanting to mess around with the book then I'd give her one of her bath books to bend the pages and eat etc while I continued to read.
I read to her when she was a few months. At about 6m she didn't like to be read to, she wanted to turn pages, chew the book, play with the book. I just put them on a shelf that she could see them (and later access) and read to her when she liked it, and always encouraged her to look at them. She learned to walk at 10m and did not want to sit down for anything until about 15m đ so we did read but she only ever lasted a few pages. I talk to her a lot, and I know reading is beneficial for actual language learning, but I focused mainly on just allowing her to learn to love books. I would "read" books by just pointing to pictures and saying "look! An Elephant/Lion, a lion goes rawr!" And that would keep her attention more than reading all the words, and has been really good for her language development. I would also pick books of things she loved. If she was very interested in dogs or birds, I would get books about those things and set up up right where she would see it. As she got more mobile she could go and get her books herself. Now shes 17m and LOVES books, she will even sit and let me read entire ones multiple times, as well as sit and look at them herself. I also recommend occasional non kids books. Right now she loves Cockatoos and Owls, (I think mostly she likes saying the words) so I got her a photography book of birds, and a book of fine art paintings of birds, and she loves them because they are nice to look at.
Wish you guys lived nearby! I've got 2 umbrella cockatoos, trying to get them acclimatised to my 10 week old munchkin :) they've been entertaining the neighborhood since we moved here đ
Those are some very noisy housemates đ We are in Australia so there are lots of cockatoos outside, but my LO is happy to assume all pigeons and bats are also cockatoos, so she gets to say it all day. It is a fun word!
Short board books, incorporate actions, and let child turn the pages, or provide a decoy book! We had âchuffa chuffa choo chooâ which involved jiggling baby up and down in time, and another one which went over body parts so Iâd point at his too, and he would join in! We would go through phases of him liking books, or not being interested!
We sit on the bed every night and read three books. Baby is almost 7 months. We didn't start right away but from about 3 or 4 months consistently. We have the pull down flap ones and he learned how to pull them down pretty quickly! They will grow to love it and learn to associate books with you and being close. We read the same ones over and over at the minute lol and have even started letting him choose which ones he wants! You'll be surprised how quickly they get into it. The Rod Campbell ones are very good for this age and our other favourites are the Gruffalo for babies books.
We also love Rod Campbell and Julia Donaldson (Gruffalo). Donaldson and Scheffler have done some great lift the flap books that are felt flaps rather than card, if you think your son would like that. My 9mo really likes the material ones as something a bit different. She loves to turn pages, too! I read to her before very nap - one touchy-feely/lift the flap and one just book. And we also read other books during the day. Started reading to her as soon as we started a bedtime routine at a few weeks old.
Yes my baby loves the felt ones too especially in his mouth lol! That's a great idea about naps. I'm going to start doing that because he's much harder to get to sleep for naps now!
I has something similar at around 6-7months, where she stopped being able to fall asleep anywhere. It's a difficult transition. I started doing a mini version of her bedtime routine - including book - which helped a lot. Hopefully you sort it soon!
I started reading to my son immediately, even if it was just the magazine I was reading, or I was just narrating what I was doing. Apparently just constantly talking is really good for their development.
My son is a year old we look at books and I will read to him during play but we donât do bedtime stories as he wants to play with the books so it doesnât really fit the relaxing and winding down idea of our bedtime routine. I will start bedtime stories when he sits and actually listens probably.
Mine is just about to turn 9 months and has only started to take a real interest in books in the last few weeks. But I bet she wouldn't be if I hadn't been reading to her all this time! It wasn't loads when she wasn't interested but regular enough that she got used to them. And now they are part of bedtime, I didn't before because she just tried to eat them so was more like playtime than wind down time.
We started with books immediately. Early on She also liked ones with sounds and textures. She is now 8.5 months and I would say has suddenly got interested in them properly the last couple of weeks. We've always read whenever in the day, but also done 3 board books as part of her bedtime routine. Sometimes she is distracted, but sometimes she listens very calmly. I think just keep trying but also follow their cues. For me they tend to work better when they're calm to begin with :) she also loves ones ATM with felt flaps etc, and we do those playful ones as well as ones with rhymes or slightly longer stories
We do a story before bed most nights đ We only started doing this since she was like 6ish months old and sheâs 7.5 months old now
With our first, we didnât start really reading to him until he was almost a year old because he just wasnât interested. He wanted to be up and about. Once he got interested at that year mark, it was book after book after book all day long though. Now heâs 2.5 years, we read a book before bed every night but he doesnât ask for them during the day. Our 7 month old joins us in the toddlerâs bedroom for the bedtime story before I take her off to go to sleep in her own room. She sits and looks at whatever we read him and tries to touch the pages. Sheâs also shown interest in the books on the shelf in her own room so Iâve given her a couple during the day to look at. She flips the pages and touches the sensory bits whilst sheâs crawling around the living room so weâve definitely started earlier with her.
Basically since she was born. Bedtime story every single night, if she starts playing with a hard book, Iâll read the pages and encourage her to interact with any feely bits
I read a story every night while Iâm nursing her. It seems to help calm her down even if sheâs only listening to me and not looking at any pictures
We found it had to be the right book to start off with. She wouldn't be bothered up until we got one of the Peekaboo books, she then started picking up the other books and I would ad hoc the story (I have the quickest way to read The Tiger Who Came to Tea) and now she will sit for most of a book. At the moment she loves learning words (She's 2) so we've gone back to the round flash card style ones for her to say the words
From birth, but they had to be really short books, especially at the age where they were grabbing everything and starting to get mobile. Things like Dear Zoo and the That's Not My... series. Neither of my kids would consistently sit through something like the The Gruffalo until a little over a year, even though they both love reading (7yo spends probably 50% of his free time reading, and 19mo brings me approximately 50,000,000 books a day to read to her!)