The role of books in baby’s development and bedtime

Mother reading a book to child
If you’re a new mum like me, you’re probably overwhelmed by the seemingly endless list of things that need to be done every day to support our babies development – have they slept enough? Eaten enough? Been outside enough? Done enough sensory play? Some days this can leave you (i.e. me) feeling like reading to and with your child is just one more thing to be ticked off. Then if you add in the challenge of having a baby that insists on turning the pages mid sentence or is not interested in listening to more than a page, you might also be wondering how beneficial it actually is.

So why is reading so important for child development and how can it be incorporated into our already tightly packed days?

How books help children with language development

Babies begin learning language from the time they are born. The first three years of a child’s life are the most important for exposing them to the language that they will be using throughout their lives. Babies initially coo and babble random sounds. However, with exposure to language, they begin to practice noises just the noises specific to their own language. (This is why it’s sometimes so hard to copy our baby’s sounds because some of them don’t belong to the English language!)

The main way babies become exposed to their language is by interacting with their parents. One of the best and easiest ways to do this is by reading books to them. Baby and children’s books purposefully include lots of repetition and rhyme to engage young children. They also offer lots of exposure to simple, commonly used words - in particular, the words that become part of a child’s early vocabulary between their first and second birthdays (e.g. mum, dad, car, dog, bye, etc.).

Baby and children’s books are also often written to support the development of age-appropriate academic skills, such as counting, colours and the names of objects. They also support the development of fine motor skills (yep, those flaps that keep getting torn out of books are actually supporting our baby’s skills) and also sometimes provide sensory stimulation by offering different textures to feel.

In addition, children’s books model simple sentence structure and provide examples of ways that language can be used to communicate with others, such as asking and answering questions. Furthermore, us adults can adapt how we read books to our children to support their current developmental level. For example, when reading the “it’s my birthday book”, my 11-month old loved opening and closing the flaps and didn’t let me finish reading any of the pages. However, if I was reading this book to a kindergarten child I might read the pages fully and encourage them to guess the gift!

Finally, if you’re not convinced that reading can play a significant role in a child’s language development, research from 2019 suggests that by reading to your child twice a week between birth and 5 years, you are exposing them to around 60,000 more words than children who are never read to. This increases by around 230 thousand more words if you are reading to your child once a day!

Reading to a child

The benefits of books in the bedtime routine

Sleep plays an important role in baby development, giving babies opportunity to rest and consolidate what they have learned throughout the day (such as all the words that have been modelled while reading books with their caregivers). However, baby sleep is perhaps one of the biggest challenges we face as parents/caregivers.

“Sleep math” often feels akin to literal rocket science, a formula so complex that no amount of high school algebra could have prepared us for. How well a baby sleeps is dependent on so many different factors from temperament to temperature and everything in between. However, one of the most important factors in supporting babies and children (and adults) to sleep is a consistent and predictable bedtime routine. This usually involves a sequence a calming activities that are completed each night around the same time to support children to wind down and prepare for bed. A routine is especially important in younger babies who do not have the language to understand “it’s bedtime”. In babies, the sequence of bedtime activities provides a cue that bedtime is approaching.

One of the easiest and most commonly used activities in a bedtime routine is reading. Reading before bed has been found to improve sleep in both adults and children alike. Because reading is a low-energy activity, it promotes feelings of calmness and fatigue. Focusing on a story also switches the minds focus away from the rush of the day, thus creating a calmer space for child and parent to connect after the craziness of the dinner and bath routine. Having such a moment of connection before going to bed may provide an opportunity to strengthen the parent-child attachment. In addition, reading a story in the bedroom is a good way to transition a child to their sleep space and cue them that bedtime is approaching.

Alongside the bedtime story, it is helpful to have a couple of other steps in the bedtime routine. This is particularly important during the baby's first year of life as they learn the difference between night and day and develop their self-settling skills. While I, by no means, have all the answers to baby sleep, I have found it helpful to have a consistent sleep routine (see below). Doing the same thing every night means that when we encounter inevitable sleep challenges, like regressions, teething and illnesses I can make minor changes to adapt, rather than starting from scratch.

It's my birthday and Count the candles book

Our basic sleep routine:

  • Dinner
  • Clean up and change into onesie (we use the ergoPouch temperature guide to decide what onesie and sleeping bag to use for the night)
  • 15-30 mins of quiet play
  • Milk feed
  • Transition to the bedroom and put on sleeping bag (we’re loving the Jersey Sleeping Bag at the moment - the material is so comfy)
  • Bedtime story (ergoPouch is already such a huge part of our bedtime routine, so we are so excited to have ergoPouch books to read now too)
  • Turn on white noise machine and nightlight (we use the Drift Away White Noise Machine because it is so compact and great for travel and on the go)
  • Cuddle until calm and drowsy
  • Transfer to bed and pat to sleep

While it can seem too simple to actually work, over time, my son has come to expect this predictable sequence of activities. He absolutely loves his bedtime story, and I find that it is great chance for us to reset and reconnect after we’ve inevitably rushed through dinner and extensive post-dinner clean-up (how fun are solids?). I have also noticed that he takes longer to settle and wakes up more on the days that we change or skip a step of the bedtime routine!

Overall, I hope that this leaves you feel like reading to your child daily is more manageable. I have come to love reading to my son and find that is a relatively cheap, structured and easy way to interact with him.

Reading is one of the most evidence-based ways to support a child’s language development, particularly in the early years. In addition, reading can be easily incorporated into the bedtime to routine to support the parent-caregiver connection, create a consistent and predictable routine and set our children up for sleep success.

About the Author

Stephanie McCarthy is a psychologist and mum of one. She graduated with a Masters of Educational Psychology in 2018. Since then she has worked in a range of settings, including schools, supporting children with their learning and development. Stephanie is currently on maternity leave enjoying the challenge of raising her 11 month old.

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