Help with reading

[mary b]

My DD is 10 months old and still has no interest in me reading to her except to eat the books. Does anyone have any good suggestions or books that kept your child entertained. I pretty much have most of the popular ones (Goodnite moon etc)...

thanks!
Mary

[Momof3Labs]

Do you have any touchy-feely (like Pat the Bunny) or noisy books? I found kitty and puppy books recently that have a different texture on each page, and that might hold a 10 month old's interest a little longer. By noisy books, I mean something that squeaks perhaps. There are even books with a little mylar mirror so that baby can see herself.

Or, can you give her one book to "eat" (like a bathtub book, with vinyl pages) while you read a second book to her?

Lori
due 10/12 w/ #1 but spent a lot of time babysitting over the years!

[twins r fun]

I've been reading to my twins almost every single day since they were born. They are 9 months old and one of them has JUST started paying attention to the book instead of eating it. The other guy is still eating them, though! Maybe it's just developmental. I find the books with hardly any words are the best(no more than 3-5 per page)- ABC books,color books, labeling books, some of the Dr. Suess (Mr. Brown, Go Dog Go). My boys' favorite is Chicka Chicka ABC, which as a kindergarten teacher I would reccomend to every parent! Another thing that may have helped my son with the books is that I recently rearranged the room and bookshelf so that he can easily get to his board books. Both boys pull the books off all the time and eat and look at them. Maybe now that he can eat them whenever he wants, he doesn't need to do it while I'm reading!

Nicole

[megsmom]

My daughter was pretty disinterested in reading books until about 9 months and now LOVES to be read to. She is also a very active baby but has an incredible attention span for books. We have the classics too (goodnight moon, very hungry caterpillar,) but she's really not into those. Try books with few words, rhyming or silly text (Dr. Seuss, Susan Boyton, etc), and large colorful pictures on a white background. My dd loves nursery rhymes that I often sing and enjoys looking behind the tabs of peek and play type books. My daughters favorites are still some of the first books we "read" a series on colors, numbers, letters with big pictures of everyday objects and animals. You also don't really have to read all or any of the words on the page either, just point out the interesting things and let your child learn to turn the page (another reason why board books work great). Plastic bath and cloth books that squeak, have crinkly paper are also really nice. My daughter also likes a magazine for babies called Babybug made by Cricket mag where there are different types of illustations and stories which I think helps to hold her interest. It's probably at your library (kind of expensive to suscribe). She seems very interested in Winnie the Pooh and the Sesame Street folks from her toy collection so I'm about to invest in some books about those guys.

My dd now can even hear us recite from one her books without the book even around and stops what she is doing to listen (we've read most of her books so much that we have them memorized). I keep a basket of her favorite board books by the glider in her room and she loves to pick them out and look at the pictures. My dd is one year now and very verbal for age. Who knows if that's the reading, genetics, or she just picks up a lot from our conversations. But reading should be fun so just take your child's lead.

[luvbeinmama]

I agree with the others... get books that make noise or that she can chew on. Giving her one to chew while you read another is a REALLY good idea. We read to DS from birth, and then stopped for a while when he was more active & really chewing them & not interested. We started up again after he stopped being too destructive, and used board books only for a while (he still tore them up, but it's all relative at that point). Now he's 2 1/2 and LOVES his books. We read a story before naptime, and 2 stories before bedtime, and beyond that, whatever he requests. We have him signed up for the Dr Seuss book club and when we get new books, we have to read them over and over, and over, and over, etc... until he goes to bed. He usually will request readings of new books several times over the course of the few days after their arrival, then he goes back to picking out of his growing collection. (He always picks out what he wants to read). So don't give up. Keep on reading. Just pick out some things that are harder to destroy at this point.

[KathyO]

My daughter is crazy for pictures of babies. Try a book that has photographs of babies in it. My mother found a book called "All Gone" that she really loves. Photographs of dogs and cats catch her interest as well.

Cheers,

KathyO

[suzska]

My son is almost 17 months old and he's just recently gotten interested enough in the books to (sometimes) stop trying to eat them. He has vinyl and cloth books that I've always just let him do whatever he wants with, but I've tried to keep the board books out of his hands--he would just chew them to shreds with all the teeth he has (he's had teeth since 3.5 months).

I like the Lamaze Learning Curve books. He has most of the all-cloth ones of those. His favorite is "In My House" which is for 9+ months. It has a different texture on each page, and lots of things to point to--boy, puppy, baby, mama, block. It's a board book but has cloth around the edge, so he hasn't done too much damage to it.

We have a bunch of the Boynton books. His favorite of those is "One, Two, Three" because it has a car on one of the pages--he automatically turns to that page each time he picks it up.

Another of his favorites is "Cow Moo Me." And we just got "That's Not My Train" a few weeks ago--a different texture on each page. He likes textures and things he can point to, some of which he can actually "name." I have some Barnes and Noble gift cards, so I plan to go check out some more things today.

[suzska]

Okay, I went and spent $70 on books yesterday (I had $50 in gift cards, so....) and here's what I got. I list the ISBN's in case anyone is interested in checking these out online. They're all board books, and one is a set of cards that while Evan can't use them as a matching game yet, I thought they would be fun to play with anyway.

Doggies (Boynton) 0671493183

A to Z (Boynton) 0671493175

Huggy Buggy: Colors 0760727716

Huggy Buggy: Numbes 0760727732

Huggy Buggy: Opposites 0760727740

Huggy Buggy: Match-Up Game 1568900716 (These are the cards--there are 14 cards, two of each to play a memory game, but each set has a different color and number represented on it)

Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks from A to Z 0679806636

My First Learning Library 0789455617 (Boxed Set that contains My First Word Book, My First Numbers Book, and My First ABC Book)

Active Minds: Counting 0785342575

Active Minds: Alphabet 0785333835 (The picture online does not match the actual book)

These last two are larger "lift-the-flap" board books, with over 60 flaps in each book. Evan really likes these. Of course he likes cars, so he really likes the Huggy Buggy Colors one--a car on each page! I was looking for more books like his In My House and That's Not My Train books, but I couldn't find any at the store. I tried to find ones that had simple concepts (the Huggy Buggy ones) or had lots of things that he could point to (the My First... and Active Minds books).

HTH!

[egoldber]

My 11 1/2 month old only chewed on books until about a month or so ago. Since then, she has developed an attention span for about ONE VERY SHORT book lol :) . Her "favorites" are books with lots of rhymes. The current two favorites are "My First Book of Sushi" (which is incredibly cute) and "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb".

She also has a couple "touch and feel" type books that she now likes to "look" at, turn the pages and feel the shapes/textures. Her favorite of those is one with thick fur on the cover, which she loves because it is similar to the texture of our pets' fur.

HTH,

[laura_winckler]

I second the recommendations for the touch and feel books. DK makes a good line of these (and Sam's Club has them cheap sometimes). Also try lift-the-flap. My son also liked any book that required me to sound like an idiot (animal noises, car noises, etc.) That cracked him up.

Remember that you may not actually be "reading" the books to her at this point. Just talk about the pictures and let her turn the pages. Don't worry about getting the story in there at this point. Just keep looking at books! My son lost all interest for a while, but now he loves his books! Hang in there!