At what age do you start Reading to them?

[hazlinh]

Dd is 7 months next week, and she's always liked looking at books/mags/newspapers but spends more time chewing them than anything else really. Maybe I'm just lazy but shud I start reading to her now? And do people follow the words or make up stories and point out pictures/colours etc? My sis does the latter and ignores the written words but I'm just so uncreative and feel silly when I try to do it.
Any tips?

we read to dd from birth - we realised she did not look at pics or could not and so on but I think she just liked listening to our voices

Now at 2 she loves books - loves looking at and pointing to pics and words. She also signs parts of the story. She has a variety of books - board, cloth, plastic for bath, paper etc.

lol motherinferioir, and same with us!

from birth here too. We always let ds go at his own pace (eg when tiny we stopped if he showed signs of boredom, when old enough to turn pages, chew etc. we let him do that too!). The act of shared reading - ie the cuddle - was more important to us than the "educational" bit.

Yes, its about hearing your voice. I used to sing a lot to dd too. (not that I can sing, but she liked it then) Now she only likes me to read to her, she sings to me (because she can sing)

yep, birth here too! She is obsessed with books now at just 2

I've always read to ds twins, from birth. Not that I expected them at that age to know what I was on about but the soft, gentle voice I used for the stories were a way to wind them down for the night, let them know it was night-time sleep. So now, at 2 1/2 they start getting sleepy when I read the bedtime story (although I read during the day to them too, I pick livelier stories then.)

It is entirely up to you though if you want to read or not. And I found that while reading the story to them, knowing they'd soon be asleep, I began to relax a little too!

i have read to ds from birth, mainly because i didn't really know what to say to him! now he's a bit more responsive it's easier to talk to him without a book but i still show him picture books and talk about them. he doesn't know what i'm saying and doesn't really pay much attention but i think its probably good to get him used to having books around.