Storytime
One of the things we love to do with Livi is read to her. It’s one of our morning activities, and we’ll always read her a book before we tuck her into bed.
Sometimes they’re children’s books, or Tom and I will just read aloud whatever we’re reading:
Last night she learned about 357th Fighter Squadron heritage via “Two Days of Rolling Thunder.” She listened intently and looked at the pictures.. until she crashed out.
Some of the books we’ve read so far include lots of Eric Carle and Dr. Suess, “My Daddy Loves Me,” and “Look, Look!” (a gift from a very good friend).
She especially loves the pictures in this one because they’re black and white:
So much in fact that I may just ordered three similar books:
I really enjoy reading to Liv because even though I have no idea if she understands or not, she looks at each page and watches my mouth move as I read the words to her. I love pointing out the different animals and the sounds they make (and sound like a total goober), and teaching her the names of colors.
Some of the benefits of reading to babies:
(from this website)
Reading aloud:
- teaches a baby about communication
- introduces concepts such as stories, numbers, letters, colors, and shapes in a fun way
- builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills
- gives babies information about the world around them
Believe it or not, by the time babies reach their first birthday they will have learned all the sounds needed to speak their native language. The more stories you read aloud, the more words your child will be exposed to and the better he or she will be able to talk. Hearing words helps to build a rich network of words in a baby’s brain. Kids whose parents frequently talk/read to them know more words by age 2 than children who have not been read to. And kids who are read to during their early years are more likely to learn to read at the right time.
When reading, your child hears you using many different emotions and expressive sounds, which fosters social and emotional development. Reading also invites your baby to look, point, touch, and answer questions — all of which promote social development and thinking skills. And your baby improves language skills by imitating sounds, recognizing pictures, and learning words.
But perhaps the most important reason to read aloud is that it makes a connection between the things your baby loves the most — your voice and closeness to you — and books. Spending time reading to your baby shows that reading is a skill worth learning.
Everyone in my family read to me from when I was very small, which is definitely one of the reasons why I love to read as much as I do.
It’s funny because our first week back from the hospital, I felt like I might not have the chance to read again. Showering is a luxury. Reading? There was no way.
Finally, I’ve mastered the art of one-handed reading (and typing) so that I’ve been able to read almost an entire book this past week:
Thank you so much to those of you who recommended this one!
While I am still mystified by Livi on a daily basis, it’s given fantastic insight into her personality.
This is the type of book that is more helpful once the baby is here, because it describes 5 different baby personality types and the best ways to nurture and care for each type. According to the book, Livi is a combo textbook and spirited baby. She is very clear about what she likes and doesn’t like -her dirty diaper cry is INTENSE. She lets you know instantly when she needs to be cleaned up- and also very predictable about her schedule. When she wakes up, it’s eating time.
I’ve been reading the book in snippets during pumping time and it has been extremely helpful and fascinating.
Next on the list:
(I should have downloaded these on the Kindle, but wasn’t sure if they’d be the type of books I’d want to reference later- it’s more challenging to do that electronically)
Sleep is still a little helter-skelter over here, but once we get into more of a routine, I think this book will be very useful. “Happiest Baby on the Block” has also been good to us- lots of “shh-ing,” swaddling and swaying over here.
Please let me know if you have any more book recommendations- I’m always looking for late-night feeding and pumping reading material!
What was your favorite book as a child?
I was obsessed with the Angelina Ballerina books and also adored The Giving Tree 🙂
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i think reading is so important, even without that great research! my parents both encouraged us to read as much as possible growing up…giving tree is a classic, and i also loved “Love You Forever” – totally cry over that one even now!
omg that book is a total cryfest waiting to happen 🙂
My favorite book as a child was “The Saggy Baggy Elephant”. The pictures were so interesting to me!
aww i loved that one too!
omg her eyes are wide open in the pic!! This is the first picture I’ve seen of her like this… so beautiful <3 she's getting bigger!! Has she gained a lot of weight? Sweet baby girl! I love her in her little burrito.
she’s definitely growing! 🙂
i love her in her burrito, too <3
My kids are older – 10 and 12, so a lot has changed since they were babies. I loved, loved, loved Weissbluth’s ideas on sleep. I believe very strongly that good sleep is the basis of a healthy lifestyle. I can remember reading Harry Potter to my kids when they were infants. Books and Sleep – you can’t go wrong there! Love seeing pictures of your baby girl. She is so beautiful!
what a cutie! she’s camera posing and listenting to a story! lol i can’t front, newborns aren’t my thing, but she’s looking like such a mature baby. i die. you must want to hold her all. the. time.
it’s kind of ridiculous. i love her so much 🙂
I LOVE LOVE LOVE anything Dr. Sears, the Dr. Sears baby book is my absolute favorite! He’s pretty pro attachment parenting which I think you’d like since you’re already breastfeeding and babywearing 😉 Only thing Dr. Sears and I don’t see eye to eye on is the family bed, not that I think there’s anything wrong with it I just get ZERO sleep if any of our kids are in bed with us so it just doesn’t work for my family.
i’m just super paranoid about one of us rolling over
READ, READ, READ!!! One of the first things I did when I moved to India was “mandate” that we use authentic children’s literature in our classrooms. It’s made a huge impact on our 15,000 kids 🙂 I’m so glad/proud you’re already reading to her! Fabulous 🙂
thats amazing Katelyn. What an inspiring impact you made!
that is amazing!
I loved the Mrs Piggle Wiggle stories … does anyone else remember those? And the Berenstain Bears books.
As for the black and white imaging, my twins were enamored by this play mat, it was great for tummy time and visual stimulation!
http://www.amazon.com/Tiny-Love-Gymini-Black-White/dp/B00000J4SP/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
YES
ohh i love that play mat!
Look at Ms Livi on her pillow! Too cute!
it came yesterday, and she loves it!
Oh my gosh, she is the cutest thing ever all wrapped up in a little cocoon blanket! My heart just melted 🙂 My favorite book was the Berenstein Bears series, I definitely read every single one of those along with my older brother.
I think it truly makes a difference to read to your baby. Look how happy she is in that blanket! She loves story time.
I love reading to the little one! He’s getting to the stage where he wants to help turn the pages. 😀
A good book to help with setting up a routine is: “On Becoming Baby Wise” by Gary Ezzo & Robert Bucknam. It help us a lot when my little one was a baby. I don’t remember what books I liked as a kid. My daughter though is a sucker for princess books, fancy nancy, and any of the number of books she likes to check out from the library. We read to our daughter all the time once we got her home. She is 3.5yrs old now and LOVES books. She always comes home with 10plus books every time we go to the library. She even has her own books downloaded on my Nook. You are doing great. Congrats again on the beautiful new addition to your family.
Aww, that first picture of Olivia is so darling, she looks adorable all swaddled up, and she seems like she’s really concentrating! My mom has told me that when I was really young I made her read a cloth book called Nighty-Night Teddy Beddy Bear over and over… and over again 🙂
Livi is so cute!! I love that picture of her, she looks so in tune!
I was never a big reader, but I did love the Little House on the Prairie books! I love how you read to Livi! And read anything, and try to make it interesting to her!
I honestly don’t know what series I didn’t read. Like you, I was read to a lot growing up and honestly, until you say it, you don’t realize how big of an impact it has! Now that I think about it, I used to read soooo much! Some of my fave series were:
-The babysitters club
-Goosebumps
-Animorphs (don’t ask lol)
So many countless other ones that I wish I remembered.
Hands down Goodnight Moon and Sesame Street’s Monster at the End of the Book.
As a Speech-Language Pathologist, I LOVE to hear that you’re reading/talking to her so much! You have NO idea how incredibly important this will be to her speech and language development!!
As a librarian, thank you so much for reading to your baby! It will help her so much later in life. Have you tried, “It Looked Like Spilt Milk”? It’s a good one for babies 🙂
That first picture is absolutely adorable!! Growing up, my favorite book was Charlotte’s Web. I read it for the first time in second grade and fell in love with the story. I went so far as to actually stage a little funeral for Charlotte in my backyard complete with dandelions I picked from our grass. I was a strange child, lol.
Livi is so adorable! She has your eyes! I loved Goodnight Moon, such a cute book!
Oh my she is just so cute!
Ella already has her favorite books. She loves 10 little ladybugs. I try to read her a variety but she gets mad and wants the ladybugs!
Healthy sleep habits, happy child is supposed to be the best. I have been meaning to pick that one up for months now I heard its dead on! I wish I knew about the baby whisperer? Is it helpful for older babies? 9 months? I’d be interested in what it has to say about Ella!
Reading/talking like an adult to babies is SO great I think! A good friend of mine had preemie twins, and started talking to them like adults from day one. “Now we’re going to change your diaper. This one’s going in the trash, and here’s a new one..” etc. Just constantly narrating all she did.
She is Italian, and one of her girls’ earlier words was “Risotto”. It cracks me up to think that everytime! Now, they say “I don’t want rice, Momma, I would like Orzo!”
There are so many great books out there for kids. I’m an elementary teacher and buying books for my classroom is bordering on an obsession. One of my favorites right now is Llama, Llama Red Pajama for younger kids. There are a few of them in the series. My second graders love the Scaredy Squirrel books, which are pretty cute.
Reading is one of the most important things you can ever do for your kids, so it’s so awesome that you’re making it a priority! My parents would always read Berenstein Bears books to my brothers and I… we had them all! We read all the time as kids and always saw my parents reading, too–it was their favourite thing to do–so we all developed a love of reading. I don’t even understand people when they tell me they don’t like to read… doesn’t make sense to me!
LOOK, LOOK was my sons favorite! He also liked Hello Animals. The black and WHite is so great for them!
We used Heathly Sleep Habits, Happy Child also. The techniques and info in the book are awesome, and I totally attribute my son being a great sleeper to what we learned in that book. I will warn you (strongly) that the book is organized TERRIBLY. I found it really hard to get through and zero in on the info I needed. But, stick with it. In the end you need to go with a sleep strategy that you are comfy with but I personally really think this one worked!
Reading is definitely important even at that early age. I read a lot to my first son and he loves books and learning. My one year old is just now becoming interested and will open a book and look at the pictures. I find that having two makes reading and learning a lot more challenging because of the different ages and interest levels.
The only way I can read is if it is on the computer. :/
This post made me think of the website: http://storybird.com
You can write your own children’s books, use images artist have created and print your story out like a book!
I had to create one for an education class, it’s so fun and easy! 🙂
That picture of Livi and the pilot is adorable!
Livi is a beautiful baby and she already looks so aware and intelligent! I enjoyed Dr. Seuss books back in my day :). It’s fun to see my son enjoy my old Dr. Seuss books as much as I did. (My mom saved a few).
As a reading teacher, I LOVE hearing about parents reading to their children!!! In my master’s program, I did a study about the importance of reading aloud to children and how it sets them up for success when they start school. The more words they hear, the more they can understand and learn!
The Giving Tree was one of my favorites as well as all the Angelina Ballerina books! I have The Giving Tree in my classroom and read it to my students each year. I also loved these books…I can’t remember the name of the series, but it was about this young girl that raised pigs hahaha.
Livi is adorable 🙂 My favorite thing in the world as a child was to go to the library and pick out books. I loved Amelia Bedelia, Madeline and the Teeny Witch books!
Two of my favorites: Look Look and Dr. Weissbluth! Healthy Sleep Habits helped us so much, and now Summer is a great sleeper. She kind of made it easy though and started sleeping through the night on her own, but I had no idea how much sleep she needed total, and the book really helped with naps during the day. And Look Look, well, we definitely have that one memorized around here. So glad Livi is enjoying it. Gina, she looks so alert in that first photo – so aware of her surroundings. I think you might have a little bookworm on your hands. 🙂
My favorite books growing up were probably Anne of Green Gables and the Little House series. Read them both several times, and I loved The Giving Tree as well.
I love The Giving Tree, even though it still makes me pretty emotional, even as an adult! My favorite childhood books were The Hungry Caterpillar (and because it makes me want to eat fruit all the time, it’s still one of my faves!), and when I was a little older I loved the “Frances” series:
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Jam-Frances-Read-Book/dp/0060838000/ref=pd_sim_b_1/190-6881493-8351712
There are a handful of them, and she is just so funny and adorable!
My husband and I had this conversation today! While our baby is still growing and hasn’t been born yet I told him I wanted to start reading out loud to it occasionally so it would learn to know my voice and that I wanted to get The Hungry Caterpillar, his first suggestion was Harry Potter. Ha! Hogwarts and Muggles, oh my!
My favorite book growing up was the Pokey Little Puppy. My husband tends to run late and take his time at things so I like to kid that I loved the book so much I went and married that pokey little puppy 🙂
That picture of her all swaddled is adorable, I giggled like a school girl, such a cute little peanut!!!
Dr. Suess “The Foot Book”! It was the first book I learned to read as a child and I remember finding anyone who would sit with me while I read it and I felt so confident and smart haha.
Hi Gina!
I’m de-lurking to say congratulations on Livi, who is hands down the most aware, mature, beautiful child I think I’ve ever seen! One thing that I really suggest is teaching her phonetics through flashcards and sounds. My mother started this with me when I was about three months old and kept with it every day, whether or not she thought I was absorbing any of it. By the time I was three years old, I could read an entire book unassisted. She thinks this was solely due to my learning the sounds associated with letters and the way they go together. Just my suggestion! Have a marvelous time with your bundle of love!
Kate
thank you, kate!
and i love the idea of the flash cards- we’ll definitely do that 🙂
It is probably too early but I heard this book is amazing. Goldie Hawn “Ten Mindful Minutes: Giving Our Children–and Ourselves–the Social and Emotional Skills to Reduce Stress and Anxiety for Healthier, Happy Lives”
” Her book can help any adult-parent, grandparent, teacher-make double use of their moments with the children they love and have a terrific time while helping shape that child’s brain for a lifetime of resilience and happiness.”
With the amount of stress we have these days, this might be a keeper. I have it on hold at my local library, unfortunately I am on a longgggggg waiting list. Hopefully I will get it sometime this year.
The comments about Livi learning language sounds from reading made me think about sign language. My sister taught it to my nephews and used it with them before and while they were learning to talk. She believes it made them calmer and better behaved because they didn’t get frustrated that they couldn’t make themselves understood. Have you thought about doing that with Livi? It was amazing to watch – a little 13 month old clearly asking for milk or to read together with signs!
yes, we have the baby sign flash cards and books ready to go 🙂
Omg omg omg The Rainbow Fish (http://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Fish-Marcus-Pfister/dp/1558580093)
Best.book.ever. I loved The Giving Tree too, though.
I loved Papa Get Me the Moon!
The book that I use as a parenting reference is Your Baby & Child (from birth to age 5), by Penelope Leach. It covers all of the important topics and her approach to parenting is very kind and gentle.
We also like Eric Carle…and of course the classics like Goodnight Moon and some of the Little Golden Books.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar always has a special place in my heart and fond childhood memories and it was the very first book I bought when I was pregnant with Skylar ( who turned 5 years old today…)
Hug your baby and read to her because in the blink of an eye she’ll be in kindergarten and telling you that you skipped a word on page 87 a big girl book 🙂
Great to see all the notes about reading! I’m a high school teacher, and I can tell you within an hour of meeting a student whether or not they were exposed to books as a child. It makes a HUGE difference! You and your husband are model parents – I know I’ll be referencing your blog in the future! 🙂
My favorite children’s books are Shel Silverstein’s poetry. I’ll bet Livi would love the rhythm of poetry!
Both my girls LOVED books with pictures of other babies in them. I know the whole point of this post was to read aloud to Liv, but I would highly suggest picking up some picture books for her too. This was one of Gi and Lu’s favorites:
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Faces-Funfax-Early-Learning/dp/1862089019/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328245034&sr=8-1
Oh and if I haven’t mentioned it, I love the name Livi. You’ll have lots of nicknames for her…like Livy Love…which some how becomes Lulu…
<3 !
She looks like a little burrito swaddled up like that – so freaking cute!
Coming from a family of readers and with a mother with a Masters in Literature I was read to a lot. I think my favorite was poems by A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young and also Now We Are Six. I still read them to this day when I’m sick or just feeling a bit down and I can hear my mothers voice!
Check out books by Sandra Boynton, babies love them! Our favorites by her are Blue Hat, Green Hat and Barnyard Dance. As for me, growing up my parents read to me Stewart Little, and books by Roald Dahl (Matilda, James and the Giant Peach), we would read a chapter every night I hope to do the same with my little girl, maybe add in some Harry Potter to keep it fresh:)