When to fit in story time

[Jumperoo222]

Hello all this isn't an urgent one but any real advice appreciated!
I'm keen to start reading stories at bedtime for my 6month old daughter. So far she's just read a little felt flip book 'Where's Mrs Bear' in the daytime. But at night by the time we've had bath and baby massage and bottle at 630 she's zonked! She's drooped the afternoon nap and luckily sleeps well at lunchtime and over night so I don't want to disrupt that, but should I be bringing bathtime forward? It's already quite early. Maybe story after bottle if I can keep her awake? Or maybe I should keep the lights bright until after story time?

So my question is...when to read bedtime story...if this is indeed the right age to start?

If your routine works well at the moment I wouldn't worry about changing it just to fit in a bedtime story at 6 months. At that age I just read/played with books with them at various points in the day when they were in the right mood for it. Didn't start having a story before bed until after they were 1 as (for my 2), they just would have got upset trying to force it in before milk, then they were to sleepy/asleep after milk.

@Jumperoo222 I have a 9 month old DD and like you and the previous poster we'd struggle to do it at bedtime, she's either too awake and won't sit still or half asleep!

We do have books scattered around the house though so sometimes she'll just pick one up during the day and we might read a few pages before she's bored and tries to eat it!

I think we'll try and incorporate into a routine when she's a bit older - maybe 1 or 2 when she can sit still for a few minutes...

One thing we (husband and I) did was one of us read a story to our daughter whilst the other was running the bath. Then as she got older and a bit more alert we had a story after milk/before popping in cot- but i dont think that was until 1 like previous poster said.

Amazing your baby sleeps so well!

I remember feeling guilty when my first was that age, because we didn't read at bedtime either. We just started doing it when he stopped falling asleep on the bottle.

I think we added a bedtime story from about 1 when they stay a bit more alert after the bath. Now he’s almost 4 and we have about 5 books before sleep 🤣

In the nicest possible way, don’t be daft

Bedtime stories are to calm them down when they’ve been running about as toddlers (or maybe as energetic crawlers) and are going a bit end-of-the-day nuts.

For smaller babies I would say best time to read to them is straight after a nap when they have the best chance of being able to focus and sit calmly

And goodness if your baby sleeps so well then don’t change a thing with her routine!

Thanks all!!!! I needed to hear this good advice as I def don't want to mess with a good thing! Will try reading to her after she wakes up :-)