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Bedtime Stories for Babies

Many new parents or expectant parents may think that telling a bedtime story to your baby is easy and not something that requires much thought. But in reality, bedtime stories can play an important role in the development of your child. Bedtime stories not only give you and your baby a change to bond and cuddle but they also introduce the spoken language to your child, help them learn word recognition and exercise their brains while new nerve connections are forming.

Given how important bedtime stories can be then, it is equally important that you know how to tell them. For babies, a bedtime story that is simple read from a book will expose them to the spoken language but it will accomplish little else. The key to a great bedtime story for babies is making it interactive. Babies learn through touching and being touched, so your story should contain lots of interaction.

Books made especially for babies, ones that contain pictures that are made of different materials, are a great start. For example, there are books that use soft cotton, sand paper type material and fuzzy cloth to relay how each character feels. These books are great for baby to touch while you read about and describe the feeling.

If you do not own this type of book, or are looking for a simpler way to interact with your baby, then a hands-on story might be the way to go. For this approach, try telling your baby a well-known story such as The Three Little Pigs and act out the story as you go. When the little pigs in the story run, run your fingers up and down your baby's arms or legs. When the wolf blows, blow lightly in your baby's face. This type of interaction also works well with nursery rhymes and many children's books. You can even make up your story as long as it has plenty of action that you can act out with your baby.
Some actions that you can include in these stories that have the most impact include…

• Tickling
• Bouncing
• Arm or leg rotations
• Clapping

By taking the extra time to change a story from something you just tell to something that you and your baby can be involved in together, you can take the nightly ritual of bedtime stories from simple bonding to an educational tool.

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