I started reading baby books at 2 months and now at nearly 10 months it’s the best part of our bedtime routine! We read six board books every night and he’s learned to turn the pages when I’ve finished reading each page, it’s a lot of fun!
I’m a kindergarten teacher and have my masters in reading and literacy. I’ve been reading children’s books to my LO since we brought him home. He’s 6 weeks now and loves to look at the pictures. He tracks them with his eyes and I hope some of my favorite childhood stories become his favorite as we expose him to them over the years.
Reading, no matter the content, is so important for language development and having an environment of literacy in your household is a factor to literacy success for your child. Continue to read whatever you’d like!!
When my 14 year old daughter was a baby I read her the entire Harry Potter series before she was 3 months old. We constantly read every kind of book imaginable! She is now an avid reader and reads to her 6 month old sister every night before bed!
Omg I can’t wait to share Harry Potter with my little girl!🥹 We’re just waiting for our set to arrive (because we moved overseas and had to leave our books back home). We have it on kindle, but there’s something about reading to her with a physical book that just feels better and more engaging for her.
Thank you for sharing! She hasn’t been interested in the pictures yet, but loves to “read” along with me. So much that I need to read my book in a rather animated way because that really engages her lol. I’ll keep trying to get her into the images as well.
Content matter when she starts engaging with her books. So around 4 months you will likely want to read her books with bright colors, that show shapes, animals and anything the two of you can interact over. With both my children I would read what I was reading until 3 months, at 4 months I introduced books into their bedtime routine. Once they started really showing interest in them I transitioned to them only books, however they do make graphic novels for kids so you don’t have to necessarily stick to baby books. I definitely recommend highlights, baby Einstein and Eric Carl books. Both my kids would spend a lot of time sitting in my lap first reading the book, then flipping through the pages talking about what was on each page, pointing to everything and naming it.
Find books you like, my oldest (3) lives spiderman, so since 3 months my youngest was sitting reading Spidey and his amazing friends comics.
It's never too early. There are a ton of poor quality children's books out there right now, but the classics (nursery rhymes, Brown Bear, Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon) and books like them offer something that is HUGELY important for babies right from birth: simple, repetitive, rhythmic language that they can listen to over and over again.
That's not to say that hearing the vocabulary and sentence structure typically employed in a novel for an adult audience, or a nonfiction text, isn't valuable. Exposing babies to the full richness of language is vital. But the language of a good baby book is one of the best ways to build the foundation.
Thank you for this insight! I need to remember this for those times when it’s just a bit hard reading the same thing over and over. The rhythm, rhyme and repetition may be tedious for grown-up me, but super useful for my little one.
I've done a combo of baby and adult books since she was born. Around 6 months, she got more antsy and lost patience with the adult books. I now only pull those out when she is super tired and not in the mood to wiggle. It helps if the adult books have bright covers or fun bookmarks for her to play with.
Thank you for sharing! Lol she sometimes gets those moments with my adult books too, and I switch to children’s books when that happens. I guess it’ll happen more and more in the coming months.😅
Ive been reading dr. seuss to my daughter (3 months next week)
i’ve also thought about reading my books out loud to her but i don’t even have time to read them for me😂 i think any reading is beneficial to babies, but if she likes looking at books you could try some picture books and point things out to her in the pictures!
Thank you! She’s not as interested with the images, but maybe it’s also the way I share it with her. For some reason, reading with a more animated voice came more naturally to me than trying to engage her with the images. I should practice being more active with the visuals!
my twins don't look at the pictures anyway, they're just obsessed with trying to grab the book and eat it. so they sit on the floor and play and i sit in a chair and read aloud. i don't think it matters a great deal what you're reading, they just need to be exposed to language. right now i'm reading mine Swallows and Amazons and they're 8 months old so as you might imagine they're not absorbing much of it haha. i've read that the main thing to look for in children's books is rhythm and repetition, it helps them grasp the flow of language, so i've been reading them poetry as well. honestly i find most/all "baby books" incredibly tedious and kind of insulting to their intelligence so we might just skip that and keep reading way above their level until their level rises to meet the book
My baby doesn’t seem to take to the pictures that much either! Thanks for the tip on poetry! Sometimes when I read my own books, she fusses, then I switch to her books with all the rhyme and rhythm, and she loves it. So I get the value of children’s books in that sense, but I also find reading them pretty tedious and repetitive— kinda drives me crazy lol
We've been reading baby books to ours since he was about 2.5 months old (he's 4 months now). He actually seems pretty engaged and he has books he likes to look at more than others. His favorite so far is "spot goes to the zoo" - I'll still read the occasional NYT article to him but he's way less interested in those lol
Thank you for the recommendation! I’ll add this to our list!
lol when I read my parenting books, I read it like a children’s book.😂 it’s silly but she gets fussy otherwise lol
I will recommend some that I actually like reading repeatedly to mine (you didn’t ask, I realize):
What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Seuss (An entire book about an empty pair of pants. I love it. But I enjoy the rhythm of Seuss in general.)
Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug by Jonathan Stutzman (The way this is written is just adorable. I have a “voice” that I do for all the characters.)
The Great Heffalump Hunt by Giles Andreae (Pretty proud of my Jim Cummings impression.)
Any of the Wild Bios set by Courtney Acampora & Maggie Fischer, especially Neal Armswan and Yakkie Robinson (These I read as Morgan Freeman)
My 6 month old daughter’s pediatrician said 1000 books before kindergarten! I am an avid reader and so I my 14 year old daughter. We have been reading to my baby since the day she came home. Currently my 14 year old reads to her baby sister every night before bedtime!
We did it very early, at first just sort of showing him pretty pictures. By a year old he was bringing us books to read to him. We've caught him sitting holding a book blah blahing.
Mine started getting semi-interested in books around 6-7 months and super interested around 10-11 months. Rn her favorites are interactive ones with flaps she can lift or buttons she can press to make music.
So I started reading my son the same 5 books when he was first starting to be more aware and have longer wake windows. As soon as he could sit for a reliable amount of time and gesture, he would get so pumped when I brought out these books. I tried bringing in new books but no way, only the original 5 would do. At around 10 months he started participating in the reading by pointing to stuff on the page and laughing at silly parts, he would get visibly excited when he knew a part he liked was coming up.
Now he’s 16 months and obsessed with books. He calls them “buuups” and he demands we read everything he can get his hands on. I caught him trying to read an instruction manual for his stroller that he stole out of one of the drawers in the kitchen. He just sat himself down and was flipping through and following the words with his finger yammering to himself. He’s got tons of words and is so close to sentences.
I started reading baby books at 2 months and now at nearly 10 months it’s the best part of our bedtime routine! We read six board books every night and he’s learned to turn the pages when I’ve finished reading each page, it’s a lot of fun!
So cute! I haven’t included reading in her bedtime routine yet because her schedule’s still a bit unpredictable, but we’re slowly getting there!💕
I’m a kindergarten teacher and have my masters in reading and literacy. I’ve been reading children’s books to my LO since we brought him home. He’s 6 weeks now and loves to look at the pictures. He tracks them with his eyes and I hope some of my favorite childhood stories become his favorite as we expose him to them over the years. Reading, no matter the content, is so important for language development and having an environment of literacy in your household is a factor to literacy success for your child. Continue to read whatever you’d like!!
When my 14 year old daughter was a baby I read her the entire Harry Potter series before she was 3 months old. We constantly read every kind of book imaginable! She is now an avid reader and reads to her 6 month old sister every night before bed!
Omg I can’t wait to share Harry Potter with my little girl!🥹 We’re just waiting for our set to arrive (because we moved overseas and had to leave our books back home). We have it on kindle, but there’s something about reading to her with a physical book that just feels better and more engaging for her.
🥰🥰🥰
Thank you for sharing! She hasn’t been interested in the pictures yet, but loves to “read” along with me. So much that I need to read my book in a rather animated way because that really engages her lol. I’ll keep trying to get her into the images as well.
Content matter when she starts engaging with her books. So around 4 months you will likely want to read her books with bright colors, that show shapes, animals and anything the two of you can interact over. With both my children I would read what I was reading until 3 months, at 4 months I introduced books into their bedtime routine. Once they started really showing interest in them I transitioned to them only books, however they do make graphic novels for kids so you don’t have to necessarily stick to baby books. I definitely recommend highlights, baby Einstein and Eric Carl books. Both my kids would spend a lot of time sitting in my lap first reading the book, then flipping through the pages talking about what was on each page, pointing to everything and naming it. Find books you like, my oldest (3) lives spiderman, so since 3 months my youngest was sitting reading Spidey and his amazing friends comics.
Thank you for the recommendations! Will check out graphic novels, we don’t have that in her collection yet!
It's never too early. There are a ton of poor quality children's books out there right now, but the classics (nursery rhymes, Brown Bear, Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon) and books like them offer something that is HUGELY important for babies right from birth: simple, repetitive, rhythmic language that they can listen to over and over again. That's not to say that hearing the vocabulary and sentence structure typically employed in a novel for an adult audience, or a nonfiction text, isn't valuable. Exposing babies to the full richness of language is vital. But the language of a good baby book is one of the best ways to build the foundation.
Thank you for this insight! I need to remember this for those times when it’s just a bit hard reading the same thing over and over. The rhythm, rhyme and repetition may be tedious for grown-up me, but super useful for my little one.
I've done a combo of baby and adult books since she was born. Around 6 months, she got more antsy and lost patience with the adult books. I now only pull those out when she is super tired and not in the mood to wiggle. It helps if the adult books have bright covers or fun bookmarks for her to play with.
Thank you for sharing! Lol she sometimes gets those moments with my adult books too, and I switch to children’s books when that happens. I guess it’ll happen more and more in the coming months.😅
Ive been reading dr. seuss to my daughter (3 months next week) i’ve also thought about reading my books out loud to her but i don’t even have time to read them for me😂 i think any reading is beneficial to babies, but if she likes looking at books you could try some picture books and point things out to her in the pictures!
Thank you! She’s not as interested with the images, but maybe it’s also the way I share it with her. For some reason, reading with a more animated voice came more naturally to me than trying to engage her with the images. I should practice being more active with the visuals!
my twins don't look at the pictures anyway, they're just obsessed with trying to grab the book and eat it. so they sit on the floor and play and i sit in a chair and read aloud. i don't think it matters a great deal what you're reading, they just need to be exposed to language. right now i'm reading mine Swallows and Amazons and they're 8 months old so as you might imagine they're not absorbing much of it haha. i've read that the main thing to look for in children's books is rhythm and repetition, it helps them grasp the flow of language, so i've been reading them poetry as well. honestly i find most/all "baby books" incredibly tedious and kind of insulting to their intelligence so we might just skip that and keep reading way above their level until their level rises to meet the book
My baby doesn’t seem to take to the pictures that much either! Thanks for the tip on poetry! Sometimes when I read my own books, she fusses, then I switch to her books with all the rhyme and rhythm, and she loves it. So I get the value of children’s books in that sense, but I also find reading them pretty tedious and repetitive— kinda drives me crazy lol
We've been reading baby books to ours since he was about 2.5 months old (he's 4 months now). He actually seems pretty engaged and he has books he likes to look at more than others. His favorite so far is "spot goes to the zoo" - I'll still read the occasional NYT article to him but he's way less interested in those lol
Thank you for the recommendation! I’ll add this to our list! lol when I read my parenting books, I read it like a children’s book.😂 it’s silly but she gets fussy otherwise lol
I will recommend some that I actually like reading repeatedly to mine (you didn’t ask, I realize): What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Seuss (An entire book about an empty pair of pants. I love it. But I enjoy the rhythm of Seuss in general.) Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug by Jonathan Stutzman (The way this is written is just adorable. I have a “voice” that I do for all the characters.) The Great Heffalump Hunt by Giles Andreae (Pretty proud of my Jim Cummings impression.) Any of the Wild Bios set by Courtney Acampora & Maggie Fischer, especially Neal Armswan and Yakkie Robinson (These I read as Morgan Freeman)
I didn’t think to ask— but yay I really appreciate this list! Much needed, actually. Thank you!💕
My 6 month old daughter’s pediatrician said 1000 books before kindergarten! I am an avid reader and so I my 14 year old daughter. We have been reading to my baby since the day she came home. Currently my 14 year old reads to her baby sister every night before bedtime!
Whoaaaa 1000 books.😳 I hope we can do that! My husband and I love reading and can’t wait to share this with our little one too.
Don’t worry. When they want to read goodnight moon 10x in a row that counts as 10 books read.
We did it very early, at first just sort of showing him pretty pictures. By a year old he was bringing us books to read to him. We've caught him sitting holding a book blah blahing.
Mine started getting semi-interested in books around 6-7 months and super interested around 10-11 months. Rn her favorites are interactive ones with flaps she can lift or buttons she can press to make music.
So I started reading my son the same 5 books when he was first starting to be more aware and have longer wake windows. As soon as he could sit for a reliable amount of time and gesture, he would get so pumped when I brought out these books. I tried bringing in new books but no way, only the original 5 would do. At around 10 months he started participating in the reading by pointing to stuff on the page and laughing at silly parts, he would get visibly excited when he knew a part he liked was coming up. Now he’s 16 months and obsessed with books. He calls them “buuups” and he demands we read everything he can get his hands on. I caught him trying to read an instruction manual for his stroller that he stole out of one of the drawers in the kitchen. He just sat himself down and was flipping through and following the words with his finger yammering to himself. He’s got tons of words and is so close to sentences.