What books do you read at bedtime?

[Seriouslysleepdeprived]

DS is 7 months & I want to introduce a book at bed time. We have the 'that's not my...' books which he loves. Trouble is he gets v overexcited by them, which is not the wind down experience I was hoping for!

do you find some books better than others?

[sparklekitty]

I'm quite a bit behind you (dd only 5 weeks) but the hungry caterpillar is a lovely book, or maybe any of the Alan Alberg (sp?) which have a lovely rhyme and rhythm to them, might help lul him to sleep.

[Wildwaterfalls]

We have an Elmer the Elephant book which takes you through Elmer's day, finishing with him going to bed. Might be a good way to wind down?

[HearMyRoar]

We have a touch and feel pets book and say goodnight to all the pets with appropriate noises. It really has helped dd wind down at bed time and she loves it. I usually read another one before that, at the moment we have a farm animals one and a little monsters one, both of which are very popular :)

[LadyKinbote]

We do touchy-feely books during the day but ones he just listens to while having his bottle at night (things like Peepo, The Gruffalo or The Elephant and the Bad Baby)

[Seriouslysleepdeprived]

Thanks for the suggestions. I think we need a non touchy feely one then. I like the idea if it going through the day & ended in sleep!

[newyearnewattitude]

I use an old fairy tales book and DD has three little pigs and goldilocks everynight... Have done this for 6 months and she is almost 3 now.... It's consistent and signals sleep time

[fififrog]

At that age we were reading fairy tales, but she didn't have the energy for a whole one and we'd usually just read a page. It took us a long long time to realise she didn't really like having some random words from the middle of a story read to her. One day we read her Paddington Bear at about 15 months and she wanted 'bear' every night for a week since then we read her one picture book a night. She likes Julia Donaldson, favourites have been Sharing a Shell, Snail and the Whale, and current obsession is Tiddler. She loves Paddington, Kipper is also very popular, a book called Twinkles Arthur and Puss by Judith Kerr, also Mog. All of that said, I'd keep it short at that stage. Do check out sharing a shell and some of the kipper board books if he likes animals.

[Seriouslysleepdeprived]

Brill thanks. Will get ordering

[Growlithe]

The 'Hairy Maclary' series by Lynley Dodd have lovely pictures and more important a great rhythm when reading them. A rhythm to the text is great when you are reading to a baby IME.

[fififrog]

Another short one if your DC has no attention span is a Maisy mouse one - I think it's called Maisy's bedtime. I often get stuff from the library to try it out before buying (though I have a real bookworm so buy a LOT of books!). No late fees for kids an they don't mind if you trash the books either.