How long do you spend reading your 3 yo bedtime stories?

[Anonymous]

Now that DD is 3, I feel like we should start reading her longer stories at bedtime. In the past, we've mostly bought books that have a sentence or two per page at most (like Fancy Nancy type books, just to give an example) but I think she would now get more out of slightly longer stories. It's part of DD's bedtime routine to get to choose 3 books for us to read before tucking her in. DH and I are always so tired at the end of a long day so three long-ish books (like the ones with a paragraph on each page) would be pretty exhausting and take probably a good 20-30 minutes. Add that to the other parts of DD's bedtime routine (bath, PJs, teeth brushing, lullabies, cuddling) and the bedtime could take an hour with these long books. So the choice is: continue with 3 slightly shorter, simpler books or change the routine and only allow her to choose one book, but it would be a longer, more "advanced" type book. She'd probably prefer the first option since it's more books, but I'm just curious what others are doing with their kids at this age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that DD is 3, I feel like we should start reading her longer stories at bedtime. In the past, we've mostly bought books that have a sentence or two per page at most (like Fancy Nancy type books, just to give an example) but I think she would now get more out of slightly longer stories. It's part of DD's bedtime routine to get to choose 3 books for us to read before tucking her in. DH and I are always so tired at the end of a long day so three long-ish books (like the ones with a paragraph on each page) would be pretty exhausting and take probably a good 20-30 minutes. Add that to the other parts of DD's bedtime routine (bath, PJs, teeth brushing, lullabies, cuddling) and the bedtime could take an hour with these long books. So the choice is: continue with 3 slightly shorter, simpler books or change the routine and only allow her to choose one book, but it would be a longer, more "advanced" type book. She'd probably prefer the first option since it's more books, but I'm just curious what others are doing with their kids at this age.

On average, about 30 minutes a night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that DD is 3, I feel like we should start reading her longer stories at bedtime. In the past, we've mostly bought books that have a sentence or two per page at most (like Fancy Nancy type books, just to give an example) but I think she would now get more out of slightly longer stories. It's part of DD's bedtime routine to get to choose 3 books for us to read before tucking her in. DH and I are always so tired at the end of a long day so three long-ish books (like the ones with a paragraph on each page) would be pretty exhausting and take probably a good 20-30 minutes. Add that to the other parts of DD's bedtime routine (bath, PJs, teeth brushing, lullabies, cuddling) and the bedtime could take an hour with these long books. So the choice is: continue with 3 slightly shorter, simpler books or change the routine and only allow her to choose one book, but it would be a longer, more "advanced" type book. She'd probably prefer the first option since it's more books, but I'm just curious what others are doing with their kids at this age.

On average, about 30 minutes a night.

Wow, I guess I'm a bad mom! I read to her throughout the day (esp. weekends) but at bedtime, I'm pooped and get through bedtime books in about 10 mins.

[Anonymous]

4 books of varied length, shorter when everyone is tired. Average is about 30 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that DD is 3, I feel like we should start reading her longer stories at bedtime. In the past, we've mostly bought books that have a sentence or two per page at most (like Fancy Nancy type books, just to give an example) but I think she would now get more out of slightly longer stories. It's part of DD's bedtime routine to get to choose 3 books for us to read before tucking her in. DH and I are always so tired at the end of a long day so three long-ish books (like the ones with a paragraph on each page) would be pretty exhausting and take probably a good 20-30 minutes. Add that to the other parts of DD's bedtime routine (bath, PJs, teeth brushing, lullabies, cuddling) and the bedtime could take an hour with these long books. So the choice is: continue with 3 slightly shorter, simpler books or change the routine and only allow her to choose one book, but it would be a longer, more "advanced" type book. She'd probably prefer the first option since it's more books, but I'm just curious what others are doing with their kids at this age.

On average, about 30 minutes a night.

Wow, I guess I'm a bad mom! I read to her throughout the day (esp. weekends) but at bedtime, I'm pooped and get through bedtime books in about 10 mins.

What I do isn't a reflection on you!

We're big readers in our family. It's just our thing.

[Anonymous]

I'm not raising the Woh/sah Mom debate here, I swear, but your answer to this totally depends on whether you have already been with the kid for hours that day.

I work and the hours before bed are often busy with meals and other things. So bedtime is longer for us because it is a big part of our being together. The total affair for our 3yo takes over an hour. The amount of reading varies by the amount of jumping, tickling, and the speed of potty/tooth-brushing.

[Anonymous]

Zero minutes. Bedtime reading just doesn't fit for my kids...it excites them instead of calming them and messes up our bedtime routine. But we read tons and tons of books through out the day especially right before dinner.

[Anonymous]

We read 2 books. Length varies depending on what book she chose - so sometimes it's really short, and sometimes it takes forever. Occasionally if she's been good / bedtime is early she gets an extra story. But maybe 20 minutes?

[Anonymous]

30 minutes, but that's our only reading time.

[Anonymous]

We do a very short story right before bedtime but we do about 60 to 90 minutes of reading much longer books throughout the day.

[Anonymous]

We only do about 10 minutes reading at night or less bedtime would get pushed back. We do read a lot to her during the day so the bedtime reading is more about routine and down time not about reading.

[Anonymous]

3 books is our norm for our 2yo, but lately he's been wanting longer books, so it is often 2 books. I'd say about 15 mins/night. Many days we read a couple of books when he wakes up in the morning, as well, so if there's another book he wants, we put it on top to read in the morning.

[Anonymous]

I read to our son for somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes each night. The nights that my husband reads to him, it goes on for 45 minutes or until I break up the reading party.

[Anonymous]

DD is 3.5 and we've started doing some of the easy reader "chapter books" from the library. Sometimes we read the whole book, sometimes it's only a few chapters. Depends on how much time we have, how much we read before dinner etc.

[Anonymous]

20-30 minutes at minimum!