What are your favourite books for sending your children to sleep? Share on this thread to win Peppa Pig goodies [THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED]

[EmilyMumsnet]

To celebrate the publication of George & the Noisy Baby, we're working with Ladybird Books to find out which books you read to your children to help send them to sleep.

Share your favourites on this thread and one lucky participant will receive a whole bundle of Peppa Pig storybooks and other exciting goodies. There are also ten copies of George & the Noisy Baby for the runners up.

To enter our competition, just write in and let us know which books you read your DCs when bedtime has gone awry. We want to hear about classic storybooks and new finds – does ‘Goodnight Moon’ work for your baby, or is ‘Go The F* To Sleep’ more their thing? Share your stories on this thread before 10am on Monday 30 March. George & The Noisy Baby is published on 5 March 2015.

This competition is now closed!
And the winner is...
Anusia86

Runners up:
julker, winewolfhowls, melanieclaire2002, poorbutrich, lupus, clippityclop, KittieCat, Ineedtimeoff, hazelangell, mumtoason87

Special mention to SoupDragon for their lovely post about HairyMcLairy

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone for contributing!

It was drowsily warm with dozens of bees
lazily buzzing through flowers and trees
Hairy McLairy decided to choose
A place in the shade for his afternoon snooze...

[happy sigh] I loved the rhythm of the Hairy McLairy books and I can still remember vast swathe of them despite my youngest being 9 now.

They were always my first choice of bedtime story because of the way they flowed.

I don't want to be entered into the draw for the Peppa Pig goodies though :o

Seen and Not Heard by Katie May Green and also Rory and the Monstersitter by Rosie Reeve. She also likes J Donaldson books - The Singing Mermaid is her favourite one at the moment

My 6 year old likes: All Fairytales, Alfie books, Rainbow Fish, anything by Julia Donaldson (current ones being Room on the Broom and What the lady bird heard. The right book read every so quietly usually sends her and me almost to sleep.

I'm not Cute and I'm not Scared by Jonathan Allen were guaranteed to send my grandsons off to sleep.

SoupDragon Hairy McClairy and Zachary Quack was another great favourite (especially with me). I love the rhythm of "Pittery pattery skittery scattery zip round the corner came Zachary Quack".

So many favourites. We love goodnight moon, owl babies. The runaway dinner, mr men books, noddy, Alfie book and all other by Shirley Hughes (I love these especially), the tiger who came to tea, Peppa pig storybook especially the family computer and the dentist trip, walking through the jungle and lost and all Chris Haughton's other books. Oh also toddle waddle by Julia Donaldson was a big favourite for ages and we all love the Hairy McClary books too. Phew, I'm definitely more up on kids books than adult ones!

We love books at bedtime.

Favorites are the Winnie the Witch books, very funny and great illustrations. You find something different everytime you read them.

Tabby McCat
Gruffalo
Tiddler

Two Little Trains and The Little Island, both by Margaret Wise Brown (of Goodnight Moon fame). They are poetic, romantic and beautiful. The former has quite a lot of repetitive phrases, making it soothing to listen to.

My Dd 2.5 loves 'sleepy farm' a little book that came with the Gro clock. It reinforces going to bed and not getting up until the sun changes on the clock...which seems to work! Lovely pictures and nice rhyming too.

I think it's quite telling that I can remember large chunks of the Hairy McLairy books :)

My DS loves "Time for bed, Spot" or "Stick Man", "Paper Dolls" or "Town Mouse and Country Mouse" (He is convinced that he is the Country Mouse and his cousin is the Town Mouse).

stories don't put any of mine to sleep but they all still love having a story at bedtime - def calms them a bit.
We all like Julia Donaldson books, also Each Peach Pear Plum. Funny Bones is another. I prefer to read rhyming, rhythmical books rather than just normal stories - I think the kids like it too (although they don't get a lot of choice as I pick the story!)

Guess how much I love you and Rabbits Nap are two of my Ds' favourites. He also loves Where's My Teddy but gets too excited when Eddy meets the bear, so we have to read that before bath time so he can calm down!

Can't you sleep little bear? I can't remember who it's by. And 'guess how much I love you.'

The gruffallo and bear hunt are my youngest sons favourites, me and my daughter are going through a Jacqueline Wilson faze, and my eldest used to love any rohl Dahl books.
My trick is singing really quietly and it usually works with a stroke of the brow really lightly we usually sing rainbow inch worm and you are my sunshine over and over til sleep takes over! I usually wake up a few hours later having sang myself to sleep too lol

My little girl loves Peace at Last, (especially when I do the noises)
Some new favourites are 'Listen, Listen' and 'If kisses were colours' both by the same author. In fact I'd say that those two are her best bedtime stories. An indication of how much she loves them is how battered the books are!

My 3 year old is loving her "Girl who lost her name..." Book at the moment. I love seeing her face light up when her own name is revealed at the end.

My 1 year old has a serious Gruffalo obsession. I had to memorise it as he just wants to kiss the gruffalo everytime he sees it. I think it's got a lovely flow to it for bedtime.

My dc love an out of print book "teddy goes to hospital" which was given to them by their favourite aunt. They both know it off by heart.

Ds has always loved reading our local builders merchants catalogue as his bedtime story. Thanks Grandad! He caused much hilarity shouting "look mummy a scissor lift" from his buggy as soon as he could speak in sentences.

My son (18 months) has loads of books but some of the best for bedtime stories are:

1.Guess How Much I Love You- brilliant for goodnight cuddles and kisses.
2.Peace At Last

1. The Highway Rat

His dad will also read Harry Potter to him and that also always sends him to sleep. I think it is because I used to listen to it on audiobook when I was pregnant and could not sleep.

Dd (3) loves The Jolly Postman at the moment, and also Where is Kipper's Bear. The rhyming sends her off, and the copy we have used to be mine, which is nice.

My DD, age 3, loves being read to before bed. She loves the Gruffalo, and Gruffalo's child, and Owl babies and we have a big book of traditional (very short!) stories and rhymes which she enjoys. But EVERY night whichever book we read has to be accompanied by either 'I love my daddy'or 'I Love My Mummy' DH and I know them both off by heart and we get a bit miffed if she favors one book over the other for a few days running

My 21 month old son has consistently loved Fox's Socks for the last 8 months. He dips in and out of other books but this has really captured his imagination.

Dogger - though it does make mummy cry. I've made a dogger for my little boy to take to nursery for world book day

DD(4 years) - at the moment it's the Chip, Buff and Kipper books. Also traditional tales like 3 Billy goats gruff, little red riding hood and the like. Also the Mr Men and Little Misses.
DS(18 months) - likes touchy-feely books like the 'That's not my...' series and lift-the-flaps books like Where's Spot. But tonight we read Say Hello to the Baby Animals - a book I've not read since my DD was younger. And immediately I could recite the whole thing off by heart because it was so familiar.