DS is obsessed with books- what to do?!

[LarsMal]

I never thought I'd say this, but I am seriously ready to hide ALL of DS's books! All the child wants to do all day long is look at books. That's great, and I'm glad he's interested, but he still doesn't have any language- which means when we *read* a book it's him pointing to every object on evey page for DH or me to name (accompanied by a grunt while pointing to the picture). If we don't name it immediately or we don't read the book when he gives it to us he throws a fit (like he's doing right now as I type this).

Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do? I'm thinking of maybe putting all of his books into storage boxes and only leaving a few out at a time. Right now he has access to his entire bookshelf, which probably has about 75 books on it and by the end of the day we've looked at the majority of them, most more than several times!

I honestly never thought I'd be threatening to take BOOKS away from my child. I'm going nuts, though! I really think I'll scream if I have to read Brown Bear one more time!

Ugh...better go read before he has a total meltdown! HELP!!!!

[lablover]

I have a book obsessed child here too. It didn't bother me until he moved to a bed. He would stay up late (like 11 or 12 at night) going through each book on the bookshelf (probably 100 books there) - it was like a kid in a candy store. Naps were also a problem too - I'd go in and there would be books strewn all over the place and he'd be sitting there reading. Eventually I had to clear all the books from his bookshelf and put them in our spare bedroom. He now only gets 3 or 4 books at any one time. I hate having an empty bookshelf and stacks of books all over the other bedroom, but there was no other option.

[gordo]

We have the same problem. All I do is read, read and read. I can say by heart all 50 books she has! I too love that she is so interested, but it does get frustrating. For a while, she would throw a tantrum as I read the last page of the book b/c she knew it was coming to an end. Then she would want me to read the same one over and over. She very rarely will sit and look at the books on her own (which is what I would love her to do sometimes). I have taken away most of her books, but then she just brings me the same one over and over. I guess there is worse things, but I do wish she would move on to another toy for a while LOL.

Oh - and Brown Bear is one of the first books she became obsessed with!

[Piglet]

I have 1 book lover that can read and 1 book lover that can not... problem solved, LOL!

Actually, we always ran into discipline problems with DS1 because of his love of reading. I mean if you child is acting out and not cooperating, you can say "no TV" or put a toy in time-out as a punishment. What do you do when all your kid wants in life is a book? As a parent you feel horrible if you come to the point when you find yourself wanting to put a book in time-out, LOL! Thankfully it never came to that - we always find other discipline techniques, but we always worried about that day when we would have to take away his books!

[g-mama]

My oldest ds was exactly as you describe. He loved books and I felt bad wishing that he would sometimes just play or look at books by himself for 10 minutes. It was easier, though, because as much as I sometimes tired of it, I didn't have any other children yet who wanted my attention.

I will say that he is very bright and extremely inquisitive, observant, imaginative and independent now at age 6. I am now wishing my 3yo would have more interest in learning and reading. He has zero attention span and closes any book I try to read halfway thru and says "I'm done!"

Oh, and my oldest was really late to begin talking, too, so the "naming" thing you mention was a big part of our reading. Funny thing was that by the time he was about 20 months, he finally began speaking and it was in full sentences almost from the get-go. So all that naming and reading really was sinking in when I thought it wasn't - he just didn't start giving it back until he was ready to do it well!



~Kristen

Paolo 11-00
Benjamin 8-03
Marco 12-05

[Radosti]

I was the same as a kid. I wasn't satisfied with my own supply of books, so I read through most of the kid books our local library had by age 8. The librarian started picking out grown-up books she thought I'd like, like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and all of James Herriot's and Gerald Durrell's books that they had in translation (we lived in Ukraine). Then, I ended up going through my parents' books and read some of the stuff that even my mom couldn't finish when she was in college for a class. It was two HUGE tomes of books about some french kings dynasty that was cursed early on. The books followed the dynasty through each generation.

My mom used to yell at me to go to bed, but was very careful not to take away my books. I grew up just fine. I wish I had more time to read these days, but I'm too tired.

[miki]

This is probably something you can introduce later on. We've gotten some book and CD sets from Scholastic. We have a portable CD player that DD can operate. She uses her manipulative skills to get the CD out of the sleeve in the book and put it in the machine to play. She has to use her listening skills to listen to the cue that tells her which page she hould be looking at and when to turn the page. The whole activity encourages independent play and usually gives me enough time to make dinner.

[LarsMal]

I'll have to remember that when he gets a little older. He likes taking CD's out of their cases, but I don't think he'd sit long enough to listen to one right now!!

[LarsMal]

DH was getting so frustrated last night. He was trying to do something and DS was shoving a book into his lap and whining/crying because DH couldn't read it at the very moment he wanted it read. DH was saying to me how pathetic it was that he was ready to put DS in a time-out because he wanted a book read! He didn't end up doing it, either, but he was threatening it!

He's probably still a little too young to understand it yet, but I know someone who uses a timer when playing certain games with her DD. I might have to do that with DS and books. Set the timer and when it *dings* no more books with Mommy!

I hope this is a sign of good things to come in his academic future!

[kedss]

hi-

I would think about only having a few books out at a time, then maybe every week or every 5 days take those away and bring some 'new' ones out. :)

maybe you have some blocks with words on them that he can look at? or some big magnet alphabet letters he can put on a magnet board? Just some other way for him to look at words. I would also suggest Starfall.com
It's a reading website, but starts with the alphabet then works up to words and stories.

[turtledove]

I can so relate. Brown Bear is repetitive enough on its own, but read it 10 times in a row and it is enough to make you want to pull your hair out!! I also hope this bodes well for her academic future!

[Piglet]

If you think Brown Bear is bad, I want to kill Dr. Seuss and that stupid Fox in Socks. We got it as a gift and I was SO miserable (it was worse than any toy we ever received, no matter how annoying and loud). It has some of the most painful tongue twisters I have ever read and DS2 is intent on having it read before bed every night!

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves/Fox-In-Socks.txt

[LarsMal]

Whoa, that is annoyingly repetitive! If you read it too quickly, some of those words come out dirty!!!! I'll have to make sure we avoid that one.

[buddyleebaby]

LOL, we read fox in socks EVERY DAY. I made a rule that it will not be read more than two times in a row.

To the op, DD1 is a book lover too. It actually was pretty great with a newborn because I could nurse the baby and keep dd1 happy at the same time.

I don't think it is so much the books that need to go. I think it is more that your ds needs to understand that he can not always have what he wants right then and there. If he loved blocks you'd have the same fussing when you weren't building with him, etc. DD went through it at just around the same age, they all do at some point.

There was a lot of fussing and whining when I started telling her to choose a new book (after reading the little sister four times in a row), and some tears, but she eventually got the idea. I also started encouraging her to "read mama the book" when it was a favorite. She did this before she had many words, she would point and turn the pages and babble and make faces. Now she actually says a few words for each page. She really does know the stories. And from reading to mama, she happily branched off into reading to herself when mama has to cook dinner.
We let her choose two bedtime stories (ok, sometimes three)but we don't let her take them in the crib with her- she'd stay up all night.

[tiapam]

Try making a book instead. I had a photo album that has those sticky page covers and we cut out pictures from magazines, catalogs, etc. and put them in it. DD helps pick pictures and I cut them out.

I think reducing the number of books for a while is fine. Whatever you do, don't get Babybug :). DD is totally obsessed with it right now. We had to bring them to the library with us!

-Pam

DD - Two years old!

[maestramommy]

Right there with you, except that Dora's list of favorites is MUCH shorter, and so I have to read them more times probably. She doesn't have any spoken language yet (except maybe "banana") as far as I can tell but she does latch onto objects and "say" something. What, I don't know. I always name the object, but if I say "oh really!" I'd probably get the same response.

I am getting ready to hid her Fisher Price Lift Flap book because I don't read the text anymore, and she doesn't care. All she wants to do is lift all the flaps and hear me name all the objects. It's driving me bonkers.

[californiagirl]

We instituted book reading rules. One person reads a given book once in a given day. After that, you find somebody else to read it, or you read it yourself, or you produce a different book. (Meltdowns have been known to be involved.) Some books went into hiding, or went away altogether. We also started getting more books, because it's more bearable if you're not reading the same book over and over. We love the library and bookcloseouts.com

[kijip]

We have a book obsessed kid. Always was (would sleep with books cuddled in his arms or over his face.) To make a long story short he knew his letters and sounds before age 2 and is now 3 and 1/2 and reading some (more and more each day) and writing all his letters and many words. None of this was directed by us, just sprung from his book interest. At some point, since your son is so interested he may be fine just looking at the books by himself sometimes. We still read to him a lot each day but an additional amount of time is just him looking at books by himself.

Your son may not have any language yet but he is learning by looking at these books, even if you don't read him every book everytime he looks at it.

If I was really tired of a book, it went on vacation. He has an obscene number of books so I never felt guilty for that. :P

[kijip]

We have a book obsessed kid. Always was (would sleep with books cuddled in his arms or over his face.) To make a long story short he knew his letters and sounds before age 2 and is now 3 and 1/2 and reading some (more and more each day) and writing all his letters and many words. None of this was directed by us, just sprung from his book interest. At some point, since your son is so interested he may be fine just looking at the books by himself sometimes. We still read to him a lot each day but an additional amount of time is just him looking at books by himself.

Your son may not have any language yet but he is learning by looking at these books, even if you don't read him every book everytime he looks at it.

If I was really tired of a book, it went on vacation. He has an obscene number of books so I never felt guilty for that. :P