Reading Recommendations for Newborn Babies

Updated on January 22, 2011
S.M. asks from Bronx, NY
20 answers

I was just wondering if anyone had any recommendations on books to read to my newborn...Goodnight Moon is driving me crazy! Lol, Thanks all! :)

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So What Happened?

Thanks! I've been reading her this book called "On the Night you were Born" its really great but I only have these 2 books and with all this snow here, I have to order books online which is hard cause I can't see inside of them...thanks for the suggestions :)

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J.A.

answers from Chicago on

my 2 year old loves "Goodnight Moon". We read it for bedtime every night. He also likes "i love you stinky face". "guess how much i love you" and "love you forever" are also good books.

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S.H.

answers from Honolulu on

Books that rhyme.... are good. Even poems....

A good book is also 'Guess How Much I Love You."
Its a classic.

all the best,
Susan

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A.M.

answers from Dallas on

ha! I hear ya girl! you can move on to it's sister books....my world and runaway bunny. i read those both to my child when she was a newborn. i also read 10 little ladybugs and any of the other board books that had tons of colors. karen katz has a lot of cute books that are not many pages but are the type where you lift the flaps to see the answers to the questions the little baby in the books asks...like where is your belly button, etc.

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D.F.

answers from Seattle on

Newborns as eary as 2 weeks have some color vision, and studies are showing that they see more than we think! Babies are most interested in people's faces, so why not get some magazines with lots of pictures of people that you might be interested in and read the stories and point to various people and talk to your baby about who they are, etc.. Same thing with family albums - they are listing to your speech - doesn't matter if it's a children's book!

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R.T.

answers from Rochester on

You have some great suggestions! Any book by Sandra Boynton is a hit with my son. He's 2 1/2 now and enjoys reading. Sometimes he takes the book from me and says he'll read it. It's cute:)
A few others he likes now and some enjoyed younger...
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed - Mo Willems
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear - Don Wood
Where is Baby's Belly Button? - Karen Katz
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - Laura Numeroff (any of hers or Felicia Bond are good!)
You and Me, Little Bear - Martin Waddell
Thomas' Snowsuit - Robert Munsch (any of his books)
Love You Forever - Robert Munsch
I Was So Mad - Mercer Mayer (any of the Little Critter books are great!)
Sheep in a Jeep - Nancy Shaw

I feel like I could go on and on... :)

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C.T.

answers from New York on

I am laughing a bit right now. We did a "Good Night Moon" stint in my house. My little girl could repeat the whole thing back to us just by looking at the pages (and still can)! We now have the boardgame that goes with it so that we are doing something different with the story - matching games and "hide n' seek" too.

Granted my two children are older - 3YO and 16 months - but, I think kids grow into books so it doesn't really matter. The current favorites are the Fancy Nancy Christmas book and Zoo Who's? The zoo book is a board book with touch and feel sections that the younger one likes. When he was younger, he was read whatever big sister was being read!

I would suggest going with something you liked as a child. We have done If I Ran the Circus and The Lorax to seasame street books to Veggie Tales (for a more religious slant) to The Little Engine that Could and so on. The more words and the different words, the better (IMO).

Good luck.
~C.

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S.S.

answers from Los Angeles on

Newborns do best with black/white books b/c they can't really see colors yet. We got this one when my son was a newborn and he loved it:

http://www.amazon.com/Look-Peter-Linenthal/dp/0525420282/...

They'll just look at it and you can ad lib and make up stories and/or describe what it is they're looking at.

Updated

Newborns do best with black/white books b/c they can't really see colors yet. We got this one when my son was a newborn and he loved it:

http://www.amazon.com/Look-Peter-Linenthal/dp/0525420282/...

They'll just look at it and you can ad lib and make up stories and/or describe what it is they're looking at.

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L.A.

answers from Dallas on

for my toddler we read her board books during the day but at bedtime we've ALWAYS (including in the womb) read chapter books. we did Harry Potter until she was born, then we read Anne of Green Gables, now we're reading Little Women to her...

you'd be surprised how interested they are, even w/o pictures. my kiddo even complains - just a little - if I cut our session short one night.

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J.F.

answers from Tallahassee on

My daughter loved The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Iza Trapani. We have several of Iza Trapani's board books and my daughter loved them all (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star was another favorite). We loved these books so much that I'm planning on saving them for when my daughter has kids. Amazon has a lot of her books available.

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E.C.

answers from New York on

Go to the library - ask for the 'board book' section if that is what you want. Otherwise, just pull out ten books and bring them home! You'll find what you like. Since the little one is just looking at pictures and hearing the language, think about what you want her to be feasting her eyes on - illustrations are really important - give her beauty.

When you like a book, find that author at the library - Margaret Wise Brown wrote Goodnight Moon and a lot of other wonderful stories.

Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and Robert Louis Stevenson's Book of Children's Verse are also wonderful and available in lots of large format beautifully illustrated versions.

Good job reading to the little one - kids need to be read to 1,000 hours before they learn to read, or so I've heard!

C.B.

answers from New York on

read a book you have been wanting to finish, the paper, whatever. Newborns just need the sound of your voice.

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A.D.

answers from Washington DC on

We LOVE Sandra Boyton in our house. At first I thought the books were kind of moronic, but they do grow on you! =0)
I love "The Going to Bed Book" and "The Bellybutton Book" among others and can recite them easily! (Nice for traveling when you don't want to bring the books along!) Problem is, they get stuck in your head!
"The moon is high, the sea is deep. They rock, and rock, and rock to sleep"

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D.P.

answers from Raleigh on

I love the "That's not my ..." series. They are bright, attractive, touchy-feely board books.
I personally like "That's not my kitten", "That's not my bear", and "That's not my truck".

The latter was my son's and it is literally in pieces from use since he was a newborn. He is 4 and still won't let me get rid of it!

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L.M.

answers from New York on

I recommend the authors Sandra Boyton and Eric Carle.

A.B.

answers from Dallas on

"It's Time to Sleep, My love"--Loved this book when my son was a newborn--I bought it when he was a week old :)

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A.R.

answers from New York on

My baby loves the board books by Sandra Boynton, like The Going to Bed Book, Horns to Toes, Hippos Go Berserk, and Dinosaur's Binkit!

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A.R.

answers from New York on

"I Kissed the Baby" by Mary Murphy was the all time favorite of both my boys. My older son's first words (before "mama" and "dada") were "quack quack quack" when we got to the last page.

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A.D.

answers from Dallas on

Great silly books which my 5 year old still loves anything by Sandra Boynton.
Anything by Bill Martin Jr. (Brown Bear, Brown Bear etc)
Anything by Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Busy Spider)
Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney - there are several sort of continuations on this one too.

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K.J.

answers from Albany on

Since my newborn did not know what I was reading I read whatever I wanted - even Chaucer. LOL!

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D.K.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Goodnight Moon can drive anyone crazy. We read Mouse Count, Mouse Paint, Guess How Much I Love You, Bear Snores On, some Eric Carle. The best idea is to go to the bookstore, read the book you are considering 15 or 20 times in a row. Then decide if you want to bang your head against the wall. If not, buy the book. If so, move on, no matter how many people have told you it is a wonderful book.

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