What's Your Toddler's Favorite Bedtime Book?

My son's favorite book for his bedtime story was "I Love You Forever". We made up a song to go with it and to this day, he sings that song to me - or writes it in a letter to me (he's 22).
As far as the body parts, I can't help you there.

My kids loved "Time for Bed" by Mem Fox. BEAUTIFUL illustrations and it has a nice repetition that made it easy to "read along" with, similar the the Brown Bear books.

Dr. Seuss board books are the best for this! My toddler loves them and they are great fro vocabulary as well as learning parts. Barns and Noble have them fro $5.00 each

Ohh, favorite book..that is easy! "It's Time for Bed". It has been loved by all 4 of my children!! Very cute, and rhyming..the oldest ones can quote it by now:) As far as teaching body parts...we just did it, no song or anything..just tried one at a time, when they mastered that one, we did the next. "Head, shoulders, knees and toes", is a good one once they have figured it out. Have fun reading!!
~A.~

We keep a special basket of books for bedtime and our 2 youngest each get to choose one book from the basket. Our all-time favorites are "Big Red Barn", "Time for Bed" by Mem Fox, and "The Biggest Bed in the World". Good luck to you and keep reading to your little one every day. Even if he chooses or prefers the same book every day, this is how they build their reading skills.

My 2.5 year old loves Berenstein Bears "Inside, outside, upside down," "The Big Road Race," "Bears on Wheels," and "Bears in the night."

He also loves, "Go, Dog! Go!" "The Best Nest," "Green Eggs and Ham," "The Icky, Sticky Frog" and "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight."

Another great book to help your child learn their numbers and how to count is Richard Scarry's "Best Counting Book Ever."

I would suggest offering your child a choice between three different books every night and just see what they are interested in and what settles them down for sleep the most.

I used to be a nursery leader at Church for the 18 month to 3 year old children and we always would sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"

Mine went through a phase where he absolutely loved Bob The Builder's "Bob's Bedtime." We went through 4 copies of it because he actually slept with it too! He's over that now (though he still likes it occassionally) and loves the Thomas The Tank Engine stories. You can usually get great Thomas books at Half Price Books. He has several that he loves.

My son is 12 months and we read a lot of different books before bed, generally one or two short board books each night. His favorite one is called "Neighborhood Animals" by Baby Einstein. It has real animal pictures, not illustrations. He can't get enough. My favorite one to read him is "The Runaway Bunny". It is SO sweet!

Each of mine had a favorite book. One liked Popcorn (Frank Asch), Chicka-chicka-boom-boom, Put me in the zoo (Seuss), Pinkalicious and Dora books. But I think their favorite part is picking out their own bedtime books. Sometimes they pick the same one for weeks then they'll switch up. For a while I would pick one of my favorites too so they would get to enjoy something different. We liked the Clifford, Arthur, Franklin, and Dinofours series of books.
For learning body parts, we made it a game during diaper changes. I would ask questions like where is your eyes? ears? nose? tummy? This helped a wiggly toddler that didn't want to stay still for me to change and helped him learn.

My son loves many books! I usually let him pick out his own book. We read books like...Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Catepillar, his Bible (toddler one with pics), Noah's Ark, All Aboard the Animal Train,etc. He has gotten stuck on a couple of books for a while that he wanted to read everynight, and then he switches out also.
He loves for us to sing "Rock a bye Baby" and sometimes "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" at night before he goes to sleep.
Have fun!

Goodnight Gorilla, can't remember the author
There's a Nightmare in my closet, Mercer Mayer
1,2,3 to the Zoo, Eric Carle

My 2-year-old daughter loves 10 Little Ladybugs and we do 5 little monkeys too before bed. These are not specifically bedtime stories but she loves them and knows that we read these before lights out. We do the head-shoulders-knees and toes song for body parts. T.

My 2 yr old really likes "Goodnight, Baby"- it tells the story but also has each type of animal on a ribbon that your little one can tuck into bed.
The good ol' "Head, shoulders, knees, toes" really helped my son learn the body parts. Plus, we bought a book that taught it as well.

My son is 23 months and our favorite bedtime books are "Pat the Bunny" and "Guess how much I love you". I think we read each of them several times a day.

Mine loves "The Going to Bed Book" by Sandra Boynton.
It's a shorter book. Also, "Love You Forever" is awesome for a little longer book.

I let my 23 month old daughter choose her bedtime books. Most recently she has enjoyed The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Baby Beluga and Goodnight Moon. She also loves several of the Bright & Early Books published by Random House, such as The Nose Book, The Hair Book, The Foot Book (which is by Dr. Suess), The Tooth Book (also Dr. Suess, penned under Theo. LeSieg), The Ear Book . . . you get the picture! I also find she learned her body parts (and alphabet and numbers) very easily through songs and her favorites are usually from Sesame Street. There is one that is sung by Elmo and Ernie called "One Fine Face", and you can find several more on their website, www.sesamestreet.org.

HI! I understand what you are going through! Please go check out this website for Karen Katz... She is wonderful. The books are sturdy, colorful, and educational at the same time. Click on books, and then enter and look at the Counting Kisses. It is my daughter's favorite. It counts down kisses from ten on the cute little body parts.. nose, eyes, toes, fingers, tummy, etc. It is an adorable goodnight book. I hope this helps!!!

http://www.karenkatz.com/

My daughter LOVES Richard Scarry's Best Book Ever. It is essentially naming objects and we have to read it every night. We have learned to skip over a few pages as it can be very time-consuming as a bedtime routine but being almost 2 1/2 herself, she can point out virtually every object and profession in the book. You might even try to find objects within picture books you already have like in Where's Waldo such as where is the red hat or find the man with the umbrella.

As far as songs go, we like to sing Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes and also If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands. I start making up where to touch body parts and making animal sounds on the later.

Corduroy and Guess How Much I Love You?

my twin 2.5 yr olds love Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss. They look forward to hearing it over and over and over. All the Dr Seuss books are favorites because they love the rhymes. Good luck.

Mine likes "The big red barn" and "The bear snores on". He also likes "Goodnight gorilla" but that is mostly a picture book. Sorry, don't remember the authors!

For parts of the body, he really likes "From head to toe" by the same author who did the "very hungry caterpillar" book.

If you don't work, going to "toddler time" at your local library is a good way to learn educational songs. I'm a teacher, but in the sumer and on breaks I take mine to the toddler time at the Carrollton libraries, and have learned a lot of good songs and good books from them.

We read Goodnight Moon. It's his favorite.

And "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" we sing, and we also have a book (I think it's Called Baby's First reader...our covers ripped off but it's a cardboard book) that has all the body parts as well as shoes socks and jackets, toys, bathtime things and bedtime things as well.

I also make sure that I talk to my son allot. When I put on his shoes, I point and say shoes. When he touches my nose I say...what's that...that's my nose...kinda making a game out of it...

Repetition even if it's spelled wrong.

My favorite bedtime book is "Time for Bed" By Mem Fox. Great rhymes with a real "sleepytime" feel. Cute pictures too. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes is a good action song for body parts. Check out some children's CD's as well a lot have good bodypart songs.

Two of my DD's favs are "How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?" by Jane Yolen--lots of great pictures, and stuff to point out on each page (dog, truck, etc) and "Bears in the Night" by the Berensteins (which I actually "adopted" from my parents' house, as it was mine when I was a kid). "Bears in the Night" is super simple, but my DD loves it because she can actually say a lot of the words (out, up, etc) and at the climax there's an owl who goes "WHOOOOO," which my DD loves to do when we get to that page.

For parts of the body, we also have a boardbook version of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in which on each page there's a picture of a kid doing the appropriate motion, so DD can copy touching her head, knees, etc.

Toddlers certainly like repetition, but they can also get bored with the exact same book every day. We have 4-6 that stay in rotation (we actually have a lot more, but 4-6 favs stay on the "big bed" in DD's room for bedtime reading). Todd Parr and the very simple Dr. Seuss ("Hop on Pop," "Mr Brown Can Moo," "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" for example) are also big hits at our house. GL!

We read any old book at bed time, so anything is a good bedtime story at our house! However, here are some of the favorites:
The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton -- actually, anything by Boynton has been a hit with both of mine.
The Eric Carle books:
Very Busy Spider (the spider goes to bed at the end),
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?
Very hungry Caterpillar
so many more I can't think of them...

For body parts, there are tons out there. There's one called "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" and several others like it in a series.
We have one called Ten Little Fingers that's cute too.
Also, we sang a lot of "head shoulders knees and toes" during the toddler years!

Freight Train by Donald Crews (ends with the train going through the night) -- he has others too with simple words and pictures, check Amazon. Son and Daughter both love them.

We use Sandra Boynton's books. They have great pictures. Some work on colors, some body parts, animals, etc. It's in a cute way and it not way would they think they were learning!

"If animals kissed like we kiss goodnight" is the name of my grandson's favorite bedtime book. The best part of it is the animated way in which I read it, which you might try with "Goodnight Moon". I never liked Goodnight Moon for my children, but it was given to my grandson as a gift when he was born, so I livened it up, Like when the "old lady whispering" part comes in, I whisper, and so on. Try it and you'll both come to truly enjoy it. From my own personal experience, please enjoy your children while they're little, because the time truly slips by so very fast. GOD'S blessings to you and yours.

My toddler (she is two) likes simple books with colorful pictures. Her favorite book right now is The Three Little Bears. I simplify the story for her while turning the pages She loves it! Also, Sandra Boynton has some great books. Mine loves all of hers - "Fluffy, Fluffy" and some others.

Also, I tought my toddler her body parts by reading her a flip book that pointed them out for her. Then I would point her toes or feet out whatever we were discussing. She loved that. She knew all of her body parts (the main ones - feet, hands, eyes, nose) before 18 months. Also, you can always make up songs or sing "If Your Happy and You Know it clap your hands", "If your happy and you know it point to your eyes", etc! Good luck.

My 1 year old loves "Kiss Good Night Sam" by Anita Jeram. It involves kissing him on the head, and is during a storm, so you get to do the wind blowing and the pat pat of the rain.

We've not done songs necessarily to teach him his parts, just often asking him "Where's your nose?" etc.....repetition seems to be his learning style.

My daughter (20 months old) has diffrent favorites... and since books are so expensive, we just go to the library evry 3 or 4 weeks and check out 8-12 books. It's nice because you can put books on hold and recheckout books online before you go. This way with whatever interest she has we check out things on that subject (like "no pacifier" books, moving to toddler bed books, books on colors, airplanes...)

Ones she usually likes also are the Corderoy and Clifford series. She also enjoys the "That's Not My..." series of books (lots of tactile things). We taught her body parts by playing tickle games "I'm going to get your belly (foot, arm...) or "tickle mommy's back (toe, thumb...) and we also got library books that hilited those topics. She picked it up fast!

One cheap option that my daughter loved are these Sesame Baby books sold at Target and family Dollar "Eyes, Nose, Fingers, Toes" and "At the Zoo".

I like Mommy's Best Kisses for both your requests.

Mine likes "Mr. Brown can Moo, can you?" Don't know why, but he enjoys it - 2-3 times/day sometimes. He anticipates pages, and makes the sounds. Very cute. We've also started doing youtube sesame street soundbites - grover, cookie monster, etc. And you can find some neat teaching songs on there. He's only 20 mos, so we do letters/numbers, etc. right now.

I don't remember playing games with him re. body parts, but I tickle them, chew on them, "i got your ----", etc. and he picks them up. He says "bellybutton", which impressed me, and he wanted to know what eyebrows and eyelashes are. Wierd, but true :)

I'll love you forever by Robert Munsch?? All of my kids loved this one.

The Napping House is great. It is repetative which is good for kids that age. I didn't use a book for parts of the body. We just talked about each part as we bathed our son at night. What about that song called Head, Shoulders, Kness and Toes.

My 2 almost 3 year old LOVES Llamas in Pajamas to read at night. She really likes any book we pick though, she loves to read. We sing Head & Shoulders Knees & Toes and she likes that one a lot.

my son just loves a story called "you're my little love bug"..(a lady at Barnes and Nobles told me they have some coming in due to Valentines Day) and for the song, "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes!!"
S.
p.s. my son loves books and we read a million books a day, there is a book called "shake a leg" that has Elmo on the cover...also a good "body parts" book!!

We read a lot of different book for bedtime. As for learning body parts, we has loved My nose, My toes, and me". At 18 months my son can tell you where most of his body parts are thanks to this book.

I had one child that loved to read the same book over and over and one that wanted variety. I also had one that loved to read and one that didn't. The best way to engage a child in books is to find the pop up or open flap books. My kids loved these. Some of their favorites were "Where's Spot?" by Eric Hill and "How Many Bugs in a Box?" by David Carter. Another favorite book was "Ten Minutes til Bedtime" by Peggy Rathmann. Her other books are great also. Take you child to a library or book store and explore various books until you find ones that they really like.

My daughter's current favorites are My Car by Byron Barton and Baily Goes Camping. There is also a very cute book with big colorful pictures called The Baby goes Boom. It is very fun to read and ends with the baby sleeping. We get these from the Frisco library.
I second the Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes song.

"The monster at the end of this book" is a great book. My son gets so excited to read it and I think it helps not make them scared of monsters when they get older. It is a sesame street book about grover.

My daughter LOVED "How Does A Dinosaur Say Goodnight?" and "Froggy Goes To Bed". They both are series books so you can expand your library if your child likes them. She also really liked "Please Baby Please". She is 6 now and still loves to read these. I think that these are really great books and I hope they help. V.