Bedtime story-reading on the decline - do you read to your DC at night?

[KateMumsnet]

A new poll for the reading charity Booktrust has found that younger parents (aged 16-24) enjoy reading to their children at bedtime far less than previous generations did. Only 28% of younger parents say it's their favourite part of the day, compared to 42% of older parents (aged 55+) - and younger dads in particular lacked confidence in reading aloud to their children.

What do you think - is the bedtime story a vital element of your bedtime routine - the best bit of the day? Or a nice extra, but not an essential part of parenting?

We'd love to hear what you think - and if you're looking for a bit of inspiration, find out which bedtime books are most beloved by Mumsnetters, over here.

Our five year old used to love it but now prefers to read herself silently. We've compromised and now read alongside each other for 20 mins or so at bedtime, encouraging her to mention any words she's unsure of the meaning of, or read me really funny / good bits. I miss a proper story time though. I've ordered some short plays so we can divvy up the characters and read aloud together. We are late 30s.

We are in our 40's and read to ds (8) and dd (6) every night without fail. I plan to read to them until they no longer want me to. My sister is a much younger parent. She had her dd at 21 and ds at 24. She read to them every day throughout their childhood.

I had my eldest at 20 and love reading with them. We do loads of picture books but also I read chapter books with 6yo once the 4yo is in bed.

I love books, was brought up in a house full of them and now work in a library :o

Breast feeding is promoted so much as being free/very cheap and excellent for the health giving benefits.

Reading to your kids at bedtime is also free/very cheap (bookstart, libraries, charity shops/car boots etc) and excellent for the mind.

It's soporific for child and parent, winding down little minds whilst feeding their imaginations and familiarising them with books/vocabulary/spelling/grammar etc.

Perhaps it should be promoted more. There even used to be a TV substitute in the form of Jackanory so parents who couldn't read so well themselves or were too busy could access a tea-time story session for their kids (I'm assuming that it no longer exists but prepared to be corrected)

I'd like to see a reading record issued by schools to their pupils-to-be once a place has been given at that school with parents asked to complete it in the run up to starting school with a details of what they've been reading at bedtime, to start the habit before starting school if they hadn't already done so.

Yes, I too am an older parent, I value my sleep. Bedtime cuddles + story together with blackout lined curtains helped me ensure my kids got off to sleep and mostly stayed asleep. They were/are always so eager to have another instalment of whatever we're reading at bedtime. Older ones now has own reading time allowed before lights out.

always, even when we were having afternoon naps when he was younger we had a sort of storytime. I find it helps to wind down from the excitement of the day too but you have to be careful what story you pick to read.

Yes - we always read bedtime stories. I have two boys - six and three - and I let them pick a story each. I love reading and have really happy memories of my parents reading to me as a child, so a love of books and stories in general is something I've always looked forward to sharing with my DC. But then I'm 40, so not part of the demographic that is reading less. I grew up in a very book-centric household without the distraction of computers, iPhones and tablet computers - its a different world now.

We're in that first age range. We love books. Bed time stories is one of my favourite times of day.

It's sad that others don't feel the same IMO

Not a favourite activity, but once I get going, specially the books for my DD(8), I really do enjoy it. Both kids, DD(6) and DD(8) read on their own and still love their stories. They sometimes choose to do other things in their story time though, but I still read to them almost every night.

An addition to my previous post. I've thought about it and realised story time is a favourite. It's bed time in general which isn't. Getting them into bed can be stressful at times, but once they're there, and I'm reading, it's special time. :)

I was 20 when I had dd1. The very first thing I bought for her while I was pregnant was a book. I read to her every day from day 1 I think, at first she wasn't really getting anything out of it other than hearing my voice, but she started to recognise books and smile when I got a book out by the time she was a couple of months old. We stopped doing bedtime stories when she was 7 because she was too impatient and didn't want to wait for bedtime to read the next chapter and I refused to read one chapter of a book and then not know the rest of the story.

Dd2 is 4 and bedtime stories are her favourite part of the day. She loves anything to do with books and the library is a great afternoon out. I'm 35 now though. Dp reads with her a couple of times a week when he does bedtime, but it's more often me.

I'm youngish I'm 26 and dp is 24 dd ( 2 next month) has been read to since she was 3 weeks.

I love story time before bath/bed especially now dd is pointing things out in pictures and repeating words she recognises.

I think reading is such an important life skill- I've always found it a brilliant bit of escapism.

I forgot to say how brilliant our local library are for putting events and activities on all the children in the library always seem so excited and interested to be there- slightly off tangent

Oh yes. The DDs love books - DD2 is 18mo and obsessed with them, she likes to go to sleep with one of her board books in her hands . We wouldn't get away with not reading at least one bedtime story.

It's funny because I don't remember my parents reading us bedtime stories as a matter of course. We had a ladybird poetry book that we enjoyed hearing, but I can't remember bedtime stories being a thing back then. I turned into a complete bookworm as soon as I could read fluently so it clearly didn't do me any harm!

I'm 37 (old gimmer) and read to DD1 (now just 2) every evening from four months until she was just over a year but she really wasn't interested. Even now she will want to take the book from me after a very short period of time (No no no Mummy, mine, mine, mine). Her little sister is 7.5 mos and I've recently started reading to them both but downstairs before bedtime as a wind down time. I bought DD1 a book called "No-Bot" for her birthday at the suggestion of my local bookshop and she loves it which is great. We're also trying things like The Tiger Who Came to Tea but that doesn't hold her interest as much. I would love her to love it - I did - but she's just not that interested.

If anyone has any tips for encouraging interest, I'd gladly accept them. it's not that I don't want to, it's just that she's not mad about it. Although she does like Goodnight Moon, she loves music and I think she likes the cadence of it.

To answer the original question, I think it's really important and hope that both my girls come to enjoy it.

Lots of reading at bedtime here, from a very young age.

The big two are very fluent readers now so they often read by themselves. They often have a joint book on the go that they are reading with dh alongside their own reading and we try to share their own reading books with them a couple of times a week too.

We read to/with our youngest ds pretty much every night. sometimes I ask ds1 to hear his little brother read as well, which is quite cute.

Mine ds is 11 and dd is 9 and we still share books nearly every night. Best part of a sometimes hard day x I'll stop when they say !

we read to dc every night. both mid thirties.
we love is and it's the only chance to get cuddles from older dc
we will keep it up until the dc plainly refuse, which hopefully is a long time away.

Mousmous when I first read that I thought you meant your children were in their mid thirties! I mean, I'm all for reading to older children but.....

My three sons are almost grown up now, but when they were small DH & I (who were in our early 30s at the time) used to read to them every night - it was a much-loved part of the bedtime routine. We continued with the bedtime story thing long after the boys could read fluently, simply because they enjoyed it so much.

As older teenagers & young adults, all three are still voracious readers, much more so than many of their friends. I think this is in no small part because their love of books & reading was developed when they were very young. They all say they have wonderful memories of being read to, and even now we still sometimes talk about the books we used to read.

I love readng bedtime stories to my two, as it's one on one time and makes for a nice end to the day for them. My parents did not do bedtime stories for me or my sisters, though

We read to our dc every night. They also read to us.

I cannot imagine not doing this.

We always read to ds at bedtime. Sometimes he wants to play a game (like UNO) but mostly we read a couple of books. We will for dd when she's older too.

ha ha mousmous I thought the same as beginnings - I thought you were taking the mick

I always read bedtime stories to DD when she was smaller. DH did too, though I probably did it more when she was little.

As she has gotten older - she is now 12y - we no longer read to her as she prefers to read to herself. But DH always goes up with her at bedtime to say goodnight - and they always have a short chat about her day or more recently about the book she is reading. Its a bit of a small routine that DH and DD both enjoy.

Forgot to add: I was 29y when DD was born. DH was 28y.