Do you read bedtime stories?

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

feetheart - DS and the 1001 animals who share his bed complain if I do that but I think I will start insisting - I was so jealous of a friend's description of sitting on the floor leaning on a huge cushion reading to her DS.

Not going out of the window in this house. Dd is 12 and ds 8, but we still think the bedtime story is the best part of the day. Atm doing the Winnie-the-Pooh, which is great for older children, they get the jokes. Once my throat is better, we will go back to the story we were doing, a Swedish book about two bookworms who work their way through an encyclopedia- great fun! When Daddy reads them Jennings you can hear the howls of laughter from the other end of the road.

Everynight

DS (nearly 7) gets a chapter or two of a Dahl book (nice short chapters!)

DD (nearly 4) gets a Spot/Kipper/fairy story

Still going strong here, DD is nearly 10 and DS is 5. We have now got to the stage where DD sometimes doesn't have a story occasionally if something else is happening, but usually she gets one. I'm keeping this up with her as long as possible as this is the time when anything troubling her comes up which she is often reluctant to do during the day for some reason.

DS goes into meltdown if he doesn't get a bedtime story, so that sorts that.

Yes, every night, always have done and always will do. DS is 10 weeks old ! I think the sound of my/DHs voice soothes him and having a book to read from gives me something to say. But I like the idea that he is getting into the idea of "reading" and understanding books (we are a very bookish family; my dad used to judge people on how many feet of books they had in their house!). DS joined the library at 9 days old!

At the moment we like Spike Milligan's "Silly Verse for Kids" and "Green Eggs and Ham" (well I do, he got GE&H when he was born as his name is Sam).

Some of my most fond childhood memories centre around reading with my dearly departed dad. Or him telling me stories and "Interesting Things" from the top of his head. If only I had his imagination! (He used to travel a lot too, and send us stories in installments on postcards for Mum to read us each night).

When my friend's ds started school, the teacher told her that the best thing she could do to prepare her ds for school was to read to him every day for 10mins and to not have a tv in his bedroom. She told my friend that not many people read to their children.

We have a weekly trip to the library where ds1 can choose 6-7 books which we will then read during the week as well as some of his favourites at home. Its not always at betime though.

oh come on.

is NO ONE going to admit to chucking a bottle of froot shoots and the tv remote at them then legging it downstairs to watch the x factor?

at Filly - I read to my children at bedtime.

lol @ filly. i am enjoying the competitive parenting on this thread.

i read the dead sea scrolls ot dd in the original arameic and then ask her translate into ancient greek.

what? you are having to REACH them to smoke?

My kids don't need TEACHING to smoke. In fact they are on the g&t register thingy for such things.

And pfft at original aramaic, we do that before breakfast,

oops

should have been

what? you are having to TEACH them to smoke?

its hard to type with so many fags in my hands

we don't have time before breakfast dd is too busy doing ballet exercises with darcy bussell, but darcy is thinking of letting her go as she has nothing else to teach her.

hssssssssssssssss

meh

I love reading to ds. Started when he was a few weeks old, and was disappointed when he went through a wriggly stage at about 6 months and didn't want to sit and listen any more. Now he is 20mths and loves choosing books and comes to me throughout the day with stories to read him. We also read before bed. It was something I really loved from my childhood, and I wanted him to love books as well.

Dh won't do it unless it's just him and ds, he says he feels silly (he's a teacher, I can't think why he'd have a problem with it!)

We do. But we have to plan early bed times and limit to 2 books on X factor/ Uni challenge nights!

I keep amazingly exciting books for another time of day. I bribe with books, but it's sadly starting not to work.

[produces gun]

Always. They all got their own library ticket as babies.

[unleashes 100 pregnant moths] hahahahahha

Filly - I will admit to trying to beg negotiate the DC into not having a story - it is a testament to their tenacity and my lack of it that I rarely suceed - and also to occasionally letting DS choose TV and a later bedtime over story on Fridays (except of course that if I am doing it because I want to collapse in front of X Factor he always chooses bed and story )

Blimey, if you lot knew me you'd realise I'm the least competitive person on earth. I just like reading, that's all.