If you have read my previous post here, you may have known that I embarrass my husband quite often. But you might have also read that I do a few things that save me from all the rubbish I get up to. Number one is cooking good food and here is number two– Reading with my little boy.

This post is also a continuation to one of my very early posts (Our favourite baby books so far! )on our favourite baby books. I am going to share our journey into the world of books and also list a few of the best books we have come across and are currently reading.

Initially during the baby days, the idea was to only sit down and feel the book. So it was like listening for ten seconds and then probably throwing it around and a bit of tasting too. Then gradually as he got to being 7 months old, we could sit down and read a bit more each day. Which meant, we had a favourite page in each book and we would only see that page in each book for weeks. But at this stage, I was happy that he at least sat down with me and sometimes very patiently too. He may have had no choice with his stubborn mummy but at least I knew he was getting close to loving the whole idea of reading a book. And when he was almost a year old, he started to sit through for four or five pages. After which, we decided to venture out to little story books. Our first story book called “The very fiddly fish” was a big success. It really is a very cute story. This is the time he actually started enjoying books more than I ever thought he would. He loved to point and asked me to repeat the same word over and over again. And he would do this with every book. And it was amazing to see the enthusiasm at such a tender age.

After he got to being 18months old, I started to let him choose his own books from the library. This way, I felt he enjoyed every book we borrowed. Today, Although he enjoys choosing his books to take home, he also finds swiping the card and throwing the book into the return box equally exciting. I find great pleasure in seeing all this and also a bit of relief that he can do all these little jobs by himself.

For now, we read as and when he insists. Some days it might be around lunch time, some days as soon as we wake up, or some very odd times like when mummy is dressing up. So, there is no pattern except for our bedtime collections. While I do most of the reading to him, he also gets very excited to share his new books with his daddy. It is rather adorable to watch them read together as it is very different from the way he reads with me. I like going in a particular manner which may look rather silly if you watched me read with him. But my approach has always been baby-led. He chooses and I follow. When he reads with daddy, it is fun to watch too because they go about looking randomly and sometimes they even build their own stories. Yay for the love of books!!!!

In no particular order, here are some of our current favourites.

Touch and feel books are really wonderful. Usborne books have a lot of topics under this series. We never got a chance to borrow much of them as they were not available to loan. But we were lucky to read a few of them in the children centres. These books have a simple theme – a little story told using various structures and textures in each page. And the phrase “that’s not my…” in every page gets the anticipation and keeps them engaged for longer. And they use real-life objects like vehicles or animals to explain the various textures like bumpy or rough or smooth etc.

We would also highly recommend the below books as they are so good to read on their own too. So These can come in handy and will  keep your toddler busy for a while when you have to do your chores or  in places where one has to wait. There are lots of pictures in all of these to keep the imaginations going.

 Oh, I cannot begin to tell you how much I love reading with my little boy. It probably is the next best thing to eating and sleeping  for us. It gives us such joy and a lot of togetherness which is what I love the most. Ok, besides the bonding factor, it really is being a great tool overall.

What are your thoughts on reading with your kid? Tell us your favourites too…