Share your top tips for reading with toddlers and win £300 worth of books NOW CLOSED

[EmilyMumsnet]

Every parent loves to snuggle up with the kids and a good book - but a strong case of the fidgets can often bring a reading session to a (literal) screeching halt.

This week we're asking you for your top tips for reading with babies and toddlers. What do they enjoy? What do you enjoy about the experience?

Baby Campbell's brand new series of finger trail books are the perfect interactive reads for curious children, designed for ages six months and up, each page has finger trails cut in, which follow the story across the page and there are lots of flaps to lift.

Share your tips and you'll be in the running to win a year's supply of adult books and a year's supply of children's books, courtesy of Baby Campbell. You can choose 48 books from a selection of titles on the Pan Macmillan website, up to the value of £300.

This competition is now closed. The winner will be contacted shortly

Our DC's loved storytime. As babies they enjoyed the sound of my voice and textured books they could hold and feel. As toddlers they liked to be entertained with silly voices and to look at the pictures.

Make sure they can turn the pages. Use facial expressions, change the pitch of your voice, act it out and make it fun!

My son ADORES books. We started him young and now we read several a day and he "reads" loads too. He really likes the rhyming ones and ones with colourful pictures. I also always try and read with enthusiasm even if it is the 17th time that day I have read that book to him!

I love reading to kids! The one to one time is really good. I always used to pick 2 books at least. My son tended to like the same storys over and over again so I'd pick the first and he would pick the second and that way we got some variety. Books with repetative phrases are good as they like to join in, and adding voices and drama to the reading makes it more fun and exciting.

Reading in the morning can help young children pay attention better than in the evening and always let them choose which story to keep their interest.

Let the children follow their interests and read books they enjoy even if you have to read the same books over and over again. Don't force them to read, let the activity be spontaneous, be happy to interrupt what you are doing as a child's book is not very long.
Don't expect them to read by themselves too early they will much prefer the story read to them. Join a library and encourage them to borrow new books.

we started from birth reading the feely books, we read bed time stories every night, ensuring we take some on holidays too, My toddler loves to choose the books we read and we talk about them afterwards. My daughter also loves to re tell the story to me.

start as young as possible, get them interested in the look and feel of books before they are old enough to look properly at them. make it fun, start with cloth books and then go onto board picture books, spend time every day with your toddler with books, books with pull outs and flaps to lift get them engaged. make looking at books something for them to look forward too.

Read to them when both they and yourself are relaxed, make sure they are not distracted by things like the telly, and make it fun, use different voices and make sure the stories are the right length for their attention span.

Always have books in the house. Read yourselves. Have tactile books on shelves in their bedroom from a very early age. Read to them as soon as they start to listen to you. Point out the colours and textures and never give up.

Interactive books and finger or hand puppets keep them engaged

we visit the library every few weeks to get some new books. We then have a bath and settle on the sofa for half an hour of reading with some milk. its the perfect wind down for bedtime

Let them choose the books, and go to the library often, so they have plenty of different books to choose from

We've always read regularly each day, at night before bed and at several points throughout the day. I encourage her (daughter is 2.5) to read to her toys and teddies and she recreates the story to them. We visit the library regularly too, picking lots of new books which is a perfect activity for a rainy day.

get them involved by looking at the pictures. Discussing what is in the pictures and asking them questions about what you've just read x

Put on your best acting voice and if reading the same book over and over - try out a few differnt accents...it always gives my little boy the giggles! Sometimes I even change the characters for friends or family - have fun with it! :)

reading has always been part of our bedtime routine, we started off with books that had lots of sensory pages where they could take part in the story and feel their way around. We always talk about the story and as we go along which encourages them to ask lots of questions, whilst we read very varied stories we always end of one of our firm favourites of the moment.

Use a different voice for each character, read a mixture of books and use interactive books, and attend your local library rhyme time sessions.

Firstly you need to understand what your audience likes, some children love pictures more, others prefer pop ups or listen more. I think a good story rolls off the tongue and a good rhyme makes the book more enjoyable to read and listen to. I'm afraid I judge books by their covers, if it has good illustration then DS can spend longer looking at it than it would take me to read it. It's good to have some favourites but also good to read a wide variety of books, I love The Book People's offers on book sets, or The Works 10 for £10 offers, so DS can have a new book each week without breaking the bank.

Funny that the books that kids love are generally very different to the ones that adults do, the books that I try to take out to read at night are ones that will be discarded within a few pages, the ones that they go for are ones I'd have thought they'd have found too boring. With my two year old, where there's a lot of words and he's trying to flick on to see the next picture, I condense and just give him a general overview(sounds so clinical!), increasing the time I spend on it as he shows more interest. I have four children, one is only eight months so I read three stories with them all in the room, but the eight month old is happy out to watch too so I'd echo the 'never too early' thing. I love story-time:)

Introduce books at the earliest age to babies. I read to my children from birth and my son associates books with exciting adventures which makes him more keen to read for himself. He's 5 now and has a reading age quite a bit beyond his years and I attribute this to just making books exciting. My daughter is only a year old but she's already used to being read to.

I started reading to my boys when they were babies and found silly voices, accentuation, dramatic pauses and sharp intakes of breath all help to keep toddlers engrossed in story time. we have two books every night right before bedtime after teeth are brushed and pajamas are on. I find sharing a book with children a great way to wind down for me as well as them

Turn off the TV! Minimal distractions- ideally no other conversations intruding. Focus on the book yourself.

Don't be too restricted by age-appropriate books. As long as the content is okay (eg not too scary), it doesn't matter if they don't understand every word. Eg my DD loved The Highway Rat from about 1yo. Her godmother bought it and I thought it was ridiculously too old for her. Nope, she loves it- at 2yo she's still got no idea what an echo is, but she loves the pictures, the rhythm of the rhymes, and all the sad/happy expressions on the animals' faces.

Ask whatever questions spring to mind to help their interest. Not just 'can you point to the' or 'what do you think will happen next?' type qs, but go totally off plot and talk about whatever character your child is interested in.

I loved reading when I was young & wanted my son to share that love of books.. turns out I didn't need to work too hard on that! He joined the library at just a few weeks old & we would regularly go to Wriggly Readers groups. I would get new books out every week with him & they have a great kids corner where he could lie & have a kick, or, as he got older, crawl around & have fun pulling books off the shelf! I wasn't really sure what to say to my little one when he was tiny.. so books gave me great fuel for that as I could just read when I ran out of things to talk about (hope that doesn't sound too daft!) - Textured books were great, as were lift-the-flap books & pop-up books! Repetition is key - my little boy is 2.5 but can recite his favourites by looking at the pictures on page. Rhyming books are fab - especially Toddle Waddle! Reading is a free, easy & fun activity which can be enjoyed anywhere - use your local library or get books from charity shops, jumble sales of car boots - they are always dirt cheap & often in excellent condition.

Love, love, love some of these tips, great thread:)