Bored of Reading to my Toddler

[NoKusuAllowed]

Hi all! My 21-month old is sharp, eloquent, and loves reading. Unfortunately, as she's a toddler, she also loves repetition, and for around a year has been insisting that I read the same books over and over and over, such that it drives me insane. I used to oblige as I wanted to foster her love of language, but even though we rotate our 70+ books regularly, and I've recently implemented a 'read twice' maximum for each book at a time, I still can't help but cringe and be visibly irritated when she brings me the same ten-page, (once charming) dull-as-dishwater folio that she brought to me an hour ago. Or being bored to tears of a book I've just rotated back in after the first re-read, having had months away from it.
I've tried reading her some of my books with limited success, but, understandably, she's not as interested in that, so it's not a viable substitute.
I want to keep reading to her, but I don't want to continuously buy new books from the charity shop, and the frequency of my boredom means that I can't rely on the library unless I want to walk there several times a week, which isn't really feasible. I also don't want to put her off by involuntarily groaning whenever she approaches me with a book. Does anyone have any advice? Many thanks in advance!

Well … It doesn’t have to be just toddler books! Certainly doesn’t have to be limited to what she appears to understand - the rhythm of words, sentences, stanzas is educative in itself.

Of course you can read aloud from your own library as well. How much poetry do you include? Both written for children and for adults? Lively poems are great for joining in with during the day; quieter, more complex or reflective poems are very soothing for children at bedtime.

Newspaper articles? Either in print or on a screen.

Vogue?

Cookery books? (Excellent with pictures of cakes!)

Encyclopedias? Huge picture books on nature / wildlife / birds? They engender so many questions and so much discussion and the child builds their own narrative.

Books on art with full page illustrations? Ditto. Particularly if you’ve taken her to art galleries and guided her through all the information available there.

Don’t be bored! Show her your world through as wide a range of written material as you can.

Could you involve her in making up some of her own stories..

Print them off, illustrations to be done together.

You even ask something like ChatGPT to create new stories with a few prompts.

ChatGPT, "please write me a story about a little girl who meets a friendly cat when she went to the playground "

Just an idea.

They choose they same books for developmental reasons and its really important that you allow them to read the same book over and over again. It helps them to learn all sorts of things about how language functions, predictions, memory, cause and effect, and it also contributes to their security and wellbeing. Once they have got everything they can from a particular book they will drop it and move on to another one.

Can you get her to "read" the book to you? I mean - ask her what she sees on the pages (depending on what she can say right now). Or make up a different story about the pictures, imagining what the characters were doing before/after or just describing what you see.

The suggestions about looking at cookbooks or any other type of book with pictures is also a great suggestion. Also fridge magnet letters. Just other ways to foster that interest in words, books, sounds, letters that gives you some variety.

It does sound frustrating, I'm sure I will feel the same when I get there, but my MiL is a primary school teacher and she sees the difference it makes every day to either read for pleasure at home, or not - it's the greatest gift you can give your child. Currently I'm at the "toddler flipping pages at random" stage.

You read her some of your books! - a 21 month old is likely to be a bit bored by War and Peace!

Reading to little ones is one of life's joys - and believe me it passes all too soon. The repetition is what they love - the rhythms, the familiarity - that is why so many little children's books contain these elements. You could pay a fortune for tutors when she is older and none of it, tutors or school, will be as valuable as what you do with her now.

My children have all flown the nest now and I would give my right arm to do it all again. They are creative confident adults and I know that this is partly because I got stuck in with all this when they were small.

Do you ever visit the library? We spend time there reading to her, and then take a load of books home as well, and have done since DD was about 2. It might help make an occasion out of new books?

At one point I also felt similar (more to do with constantly wanting read to rather than repetition of books), so I picked a longer book to read and insisted on reading that one till it was finished. It was the secret garden... she found it slightly boring. Helped to "reset" DD a bit as after that was done she asked for me to read a bit less frequently and played more. She's 6 now and still loves books, but now she can read to herself!

At an age younger than 21 months my partner used to get bored and would read history books. That ended when I walked past the baby monitor to a story about a beheading 😬

Surely 21 months is talking age now. So you get them to read parts of the book by pausing and pointing.

I will read the same book twice in a row but no more than that in a day and that’s fine to say pick another one.

I can read the same books on autopilot, doing all the voices, to my toddler while still using a compartment of my brain to think about what’s for dinner/a film I enjoyed/what jobs I need to apply for 🤣 it’s a real skill. I’m a nanny too so reading a lot of books repetitively is just part of my life.

it is very good for language and development though, the repetition and the cause and effect and expression and vocabulary etc etc so that’s the bigger picture.

‘Bored with’

This, it doesn't matter if you have 70 odd books for a small child repetition is age appropriate learning. Have 4 or 5 on rotation and use audio as well so you can listen, failing that stick on Cbeebies for 20 minutes.

I remember this well...my ds was absolutely obsessed with one particular book and we would read it every single night. I'm sure there's a reason kids do this in terms of development but I'm not an expert. I'd just do it though...yes it's a bit boring for you as the parent but lots of aspects of parenting are fairly tedious.

You need to find your favourite types and act ridiculously over excited when you come across them so she will (hopefully) be curious.
(Be warned.... when she starts school the reading scheme books are dull dull dull).

I think you do just have to suck it up, but I have found I can maintain interest in most books if my DCs are really enjoying them. I normally try to suppress the ones that are really badly written though. And I dislike reading Fox in Socks as it's quite difficult. You've probably got about another year or so and then you can start introducing longer stories with a bit more interest, and DC won't be insisting on quite so much repetition.

What books are you reading to her OP? I loved reading certain books on repeat and others not so much. So you need to make sure you have books you like too. I also learnt to read and think about tea!

Ha! It just goes with the territory. I can still recite certain stories off-by-heart and my youngest is over 30 (Ditto: episodes of Postman Pat).

This. It’s absolutely standard for toddlers and young children to want to read the same book repeatedly- it’s boring for you but vital for them in terms of development and comfort. So my advice would be to accept that it’s a bit boring and make your peace with that rather than trying to fight it.

At the risk of sounding like Old Mother Time, I can remember feeling exactly as you do and even skipping pages etc to get through it quicker, and now my kids are grown up and I can’t believe that I didn’t relish every minute of the early days- would give anything to pop back into my old life to read Thomas and Friends for the zillionth time. Of course that doesn’t make it any less boring for you in the present, but remember that this period doesn’t go on forever so maybe a little bit of boredom is ok.

Mix it up a bit instead of reading each page. Close the book after a page and ask what comes next. Or get them to 'read' a page. Yes it can be tedious but it soon is over and you mourn the snuggles as you read a book together.

DD6 still has a book each night but she is beginning to read books herself so I know the end is coming. It makes a massive difference to their vocabulary too. At a parents evening I was asked how often DD is read to because they know that we do the school reading book each night anyway. When I said we read to her every night they said they could really tell because her writing and comprehension is advanced for her age. DD once won the award for year 1 during a whole school competition based on what they read. DS4 is about to start reception and they are starting the first reading level books. We have to go at the end of the day once a week. We are about 3 weeks in now and some parents have already stopped bothering to go. It makes me sad as reading opens so many doors in life.

Aww me too...I used to sometimes try to skip out paragraphs but my dc would always notice and make me read every single word! He's nearly an adult now... I'd also love to go back and relive some of those moments

My library lets you take out 15 at a time. Going to the library is also a fun trip for them. Read a couple while there, choose some to take home then go exchange next week.
we go to the library every week and it coincides with story time so dd does a little craft as well.

Oh god, I'm getting flashbacks to my little brother when he was clearly old enough to just read it himself complaining when we tried to skip the fucking Dwarf songs in the Hobbit.

At toddler age, my top tip for you OP is if you put books by the toilet when you are potty training to encourage your DC to sit for a poo, try to have more than two of them. 18 months later and I can still recite the Giant Jam Sandwich from memory.

As someone who read 'Goodnight Digger' every single bedtime for over 6 months straight I really do feel your pain, but I think you need to suck this one up a bit. It's a relatively short phase and developmentally important.

I used to do 'you choose a book and I choose a book' , it doesn't matter if she's less interesed in the one you choose initially.

Parenting isn’t about you. It’s about what’s best for your child.

This is a tiny blip in time. You need to change your approach or the next 18 years are not going to go well.

But, @Chocolateorange22, isn’t the point at which a child begins to be able to read actually the point where the real fun starts? Because from then on you can take turns at reading aloud to each other.

I adored the years with a child between toddler age and about 12 years old, largely because of the ever-increasing range of reading we shared. Poetry, fairy tales, kids’ books - progressing eventually to Josephine Tey and Othello. Maybe alternating paragraphs for a more difficult text, or a chapter each for something easier. Sometimes the whole household was involved, sometimes just the two of us. When we were cooking or baking together I would have them search through recipe books for the best lasagne or chocolate cake recipe, then we’d shop for the ingredients (where they had to read the labels) and follow the recipe step by step. Also remember lifting them up to read the information on paintings in galleries, etc, etc …

Those were the best years!

I think you must be reading the wrong books, OP. Some toddler books are a clashing crashing pain to read (Thomas the Tank Engine I'm looking at you). Others have such a lovely lubricated pleasing pulse that you can enjoy making the sounds as much as your child enjoys hearing them.

Treat yourself to some toddler books that you love.

Another reason why I stopped at two kids 😄

I think you need to follow the lead of your kid, but share the dullness with other caregivers as much as possible.