When to read to babies?

[bumblecat]

I have a 3mo DD and a bunch of great board books. Actually, childrens literature is a passion of mine and I have 5 or 6 boxes of childrens books that I have collected over the years in our attic waiting for her to be ready for them. I am just wondering, for those of you with babies older than mine, when do you start reading books with them?

I feel like she is not ready for it because she will not look in the direction of the book, but she will hold eye contact with me while I talk to her. At this point, I feel like it makes more sense to just hold eye contact and talk to her rather than reading to her from a book that she is not looking at, and which keeps me from looking at her. But I am really looking forward to the books, so I'm wondering when to expect that she will look at something I am holding in front of her, instead of at me. I realize this will be different for all babies, but am looking for experiences to get a ballpark idea from. TIA!

[averlee]

My husband & I started reading to the baby while I was still pregnant. And when she was a few days old I showed her my "Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians" and she seemed to like the turtles a lot. I don't think it matters if they look at the book or not. My daughter really enjoyed me reading her longer books while she was an infant. Maybe Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or some Roald Dahl, or Harry Potter would be fun.

[sunshynbaby]

I've been reading to him since birth. Even though they don't seem interested in the book, the rhythm of the words is different from normal speech. I'm sure there are all sorts of benefits to reading to babies early.

[crunchy_mommy]

We started reading to him from birth (OK we read to him when I was pregnant too actually)... By 4 months or so he had learned to turn the pages already. He loves books. We went on a trip when he was 3 or 4 months and reading to him in the car was the only thing that kept him calm... He already had favorite books at that point (which I knew by heart & could recite them, otherwise I'd get sick reading in the car lol!)

[April Dawn]

I read to my son from birth. He didn't start paying attention to the pictures until around 3 months, but I would still read the text. One tip is too choose a short picture book with a singsong rhythm and rhyming text for very young babies. Even if they don't look at the book at all, they will still enjoy hearing you read something with an interesting sounding rhythm. From 3 to 6 months my son LOVED looking at the pictures in books. Currently he's 7 months and has just learned to crawl, and often he'll listen to a few pages and then lose interest because he wants to be moving. But that's ok - every little bit matters! Good luck reading to your baby!

[ThankfulMama]

From birth. We bought simple colorful board books with simple but colorful pictures and read to her in very animated manner. We repeat the same silly/animated way of reading each book, so each story becomes familiar. She just LOVES the series we picked out for her and we love to read them to her. She is 7mos now and recognizes the name of the very first book we read her--it is short and memorable enough that we can repeat the story in the car and when she won't settle, this does the trick.

We started with her and DH laying on the bed while holding the book up above. She began looking at the book and soon became very focused on it.

[batsister]

My son is almost 6 months old... I have read to him, but now he just wants to grab the books and eat them... which is fine, but he just gets mad if we keep trying to hold/read the book when he wants to grab/chew. We'll go back to reading more often once he calms down with that a bit.

[texaspeach]

I have been reading him poetry since he was a few weeks old He has no interest in looking at the books but does seem interested in my voice as I read. I read him stuff that I enjoy

[EricaDoula]

I think reading to babies from birth is wonderful.

[major_mama11]

I started reading to DS when he was a few weeks old. He listened in on me reading to DD (now that I think about it, I guess that would mean he was also listening in before birth too). He was clearly interested in the different sound to my voice when reading aloud. He has been very interested in reading board books with me from 3-4 mos of age, and likes to turn the pages.

[annekh23]

As a third child, DD fairly much only gets read to as part of reading to/with the other kids. I talk to her a lot though, so she's not missing out on that bit.

She's 7.5ths and in the last couple of weeks I've started putting a board book in my bag and changing it every few days, but I mostly use them for pointing out pictures and encouraging page turning, rather than actually reading them, if they did have a story rather than just pictures and words.

We're going to storytime at a library tomorrow for the first time, it's aimed at children 6mths-2yrs, so it will be interesting to see how she responds.

[BaBaBa]

Since birth, I read aloud whatever books I was reading. I don't think content is as iportant at that age as just hearing how language works.

[Madalyn]

Originally Posted by batsister

My son is almost 6 months old... I have read to him, but now he just wants to grab the books and eat them... which is fine, but he just gets mad if we keep trying to hold/read the book when he wants to grab/chew. We'll go back to reading more often once he calms down with that a bit.

This is the stage I'm at too hah. I've started reading to my son while he's in the highchair after lunch which seems to be working out well. Otherwise he's just grabbing at it and angry I won't let him chew/rip the pages.

[lach]

From birth! Invest in some nice volumes of poetry and nursery rhymes for the very youngest: just let the rhythm of the language flow over them.

And once they get grabby, let go of any thought of linear reading. LOL I had a hard time with that. "No, let go, you made Momma skip a page!" As though it really mattered Just go with the flow, read whatever's on the page, let them explore the book and you follow their lead.

I can't recommend a book called "The Read-Aloud Handbook" enough. Really inspiring.

[red and lulu]

we've been reading to dd since birth, too. i've heard that its very beneficial for brain development and language acquisition — regardless of what it is you're reading — because the cadence and intonation of your voice is different than when just speaking. dd is 6 mo now and LOVES books... she holds the little board books and turns the pages (and sometimes chews on them) or she'll sit on my lap and listen, flapping her arms excitedly if there's a particularly colorful page. she even listens if i read aloud from my book or the newspaper. and it's fun for me, too.

[bumblecat]

Thanks everyone. I did read to her a few times from novels I was reading during her first couple of months, but I would read a little and then feel silly because she was looking at me so intently and I was looking at the book - I felt like I should look at her, so I put the book down and just kept talking to her with eye contact. That felt better at that point so I thought I would want to wait until she was old enough to want to look at the book instead of at me, at least some of the time. I didn't really think much about how different my speech would sound while reading as opposed to just talking. That is a good point. I do think she has heard plenty of rhythmic "speaking" if you could call singing that, since we have a lot of music in our house.

Anyway I decided to give her a go after posting this thread just to see what she would do, so I read to her from a board book version of Robert Louis Stevensen's "A Child's Garden of Verses" and she smiled at me and cooed several times -it seemed like more than when I just talk normally to her. And then I tried showing her one of the pictures and she grinned at it! Then I read her a Beatrix Potter one that only has a couple sentences per page and full page illustrations and she really liked looking at that one. So I guess I underestimated her and we'll be doing a lot more books together from now on. Yay!

[boobs4milk]

we are headed to story time in a bit. i've always read to mine both in utero and as very young babies. we told millie stories while she was in the nicu and when she came home we made her a regular part of night night stories with our 4 yr old. last night we read 5 books, and not short ones either. she's just now at the grabby stage and i give her something to play with or nurse her while we read.

[beatgenxer]

My three month old DS likes to listen to me read from The World of Christopher Robin - lots of lovely little sing-songie poems and stories.

[hildare]

<3 books!

books are my life and career! i love sharing them with the babes, too...
congratulations on your follow up post about reading to your baby and her coo-ing!
i read to my dd, who is 9 weeks old. she likes to lie on her back and kick, so i will hold a board book beside my face and glance over and read the text to her, and her eyes will move back and forth from the book to my face. i have books with just a few words, some of her favorites:
go dog go! (highly recommend it!)
jamberry
mother goose
she seems to like the rhymes.
i also read some of the hobbit to her when she was smaller and just wanted to hear my voice.. i would lay with her and have the book beside her head and glance back and forth from her eyes to the book. she seemed to enjoy that as well....
it's also really really good for your kids to see you reading. they'll eventually want to copy that behavior. it's so cute to see the older ones hold a book and pretend to read.
i'm also a very very big fan of the 'read to a dog' thing some of the libraries do. i can't wait to have her read to a dog!

[texaspeach]

hildare go dog go was the first book I read on my own