Everything You Need to Know about Bedtime Stories for Kids

Summary: There are many obvious benefits of reading to your child. Bedtime stories for kids help do many goods to children’s brain development. In this post, you will see the benefits and best age to start bedtime stories for kids. Bedtime stories forms and book genres for kids will also be recommended by age.

Content Breakdown

Part 1. Why Reading is Important – Benefits of Reading to Your Child

    1. 6 Benefits of Reading to Your Child

Part 2. When to Start Reading to Baby

    1. The Best Age to Start Bedtime Stories

Part 3. Which to Choose: Different Forms of Bedtime Stories

    1. Audiobooks & E-books
    2. YouTube Videos
    3. Apps
    4. Hardcover Books from Bookstore

Part 4. Perfect Book Genres As Bedtime Stories for Kids

    1. For Toddlers
    2. For Preschoolers
    3. For Teenagers

The most important but difficult mission moms need to accomplish every night is, without doubt, follow the baby bedtime routines and put kids into bed so as to ensure kids enough sleep and leave more time for occupying on their own chores after kids asleep. To know how much sleep do babies need you can check this sleep chart by age guide. Keep in mind that bedtime stories for babies are always the key.

Part 1. Why Reading is Important – Benefits of Reading to Your Child

The importance of reading books reveal in many different aspects on both family bond and children’s development. Parent reading to child or kids keeping a reading habit at the early age shows great difference especially in school behavior when compared to those don’t read much. Check the following benefits to see why are books important for a child’s development:

1. Expand Horizon:
When kids are too young for school, reading bedtime stories for kids is a precious opportunity to teach him some knowledge in advance about what he will learn later in kindergarten, like shapes, colors, numbers, animals and more.

2. Develop Correct Outlook of World, Life and Value
Kids are so pure that they don’t have much understanding what is moral values and social ethics. It is (parents) our responsibility and obligation to teach our kids right from wrong when he/she can understand what we are talking. Respect elders, help others when we can, sharing with others are basic moral values we should teach them.

3. Strengthen Memory and Concentration
Keep asking a kid the what, when and who questions about the event occurs in the story to see whether they can narrate the story in summary so as to strengthen their concentration, memory and comprehensive ability. They are less likely to lose their concentration when having classes in school.


4. More Creativity and Imagination
Reading your kids fairy tales and other bedtime stories can also bring out imagination and creativity of your kids.


5. Strengthen Family Bond
If you are a busy dad that rarely have time being with your child, reading with young children will be a perfect moment to strengthen bonds with your little princess. What’s more, Children need the accompany of their parents to know that they are loved and cared and have more confidence to learn happier and faster.


6. Reading Improves Vocabulary
If your kids are old enough to read the bedtime story by themselves, they can explore to more new words which will enhance their vocabulary coverage. Moreover, the reading skill will also improve and if you help your kids forming a reading habit, you will not surprised that your 4-year-old daughter has a 6-year-old reading level. Children’s reading levels mean a lot in kids’ life because the one who has a better reading skill can self-teaching themselves better.


Part 2. When to Start Reading to Baby

As you can see, there are many effects of reading on child development. That’s the reason why should kids read a lot as early as he/she can. It is never too early to start reading or speak to your child. You can even start providing listening when they are infants.


Why? You might wonder: Can they understand what the story is about? Actually, it’s not only about the story itself. It’s about helping your kids listen to more words. According to a research, children absorb info about language long before they can speak. Those who are spoken to a lot can understand words faster.

Note: Reading bedtime stories for kids can help them learn language faster. However, not all words that heard helps to boost words learning. Lacking interactivity does no help to language learning. That’s why the kids who watch TV a lot don’t seem like dealing with social communication very well or having talents learning languages.

Part 3. Which to Choose: Different Forms of Bedtime Stories

1. Audiobooks & E-Books
There are many audiobooks and e-books bedtime stories for parents to read with kids. You can find them on some reading sites for kids, Amazon and other kids bedtime stories review sites like CoolKid+. There are also some free online children’s bedtime stories provided. Or you can purchase and download the audiobooks & e-books on your device to read them later.


However, it’s not the best option because audio bedtime stories are audible and lack of images while some e-books readers like Kindle lack of colorful illustration. Kids might get bored very soon and lose interest in the story. More severely, it might grow kids’ antipathy on reading.

2. YouTube Videos
If you are looking for free bedtime stories, videos bedtime stories will be what you are looking for. Bedtime stories videos are one of the favorite forms of bedtime stories for many parents. You can find millions of video bedtime stories of different duration. It Is possible that you find short bedtime stories with ease. Just configure the filter option in YouTube. Videos bedtime stories are loved because they are more dynamic and remain impressive to kids with both audios and colorful images as well as the animation.


Videos are good but it is not the ideal forms of bedtime stories. Because first of all, kids spending too much time on computer or iPad can result in a reliance on electronics and devices as well as short-sighted. Moreover, as we mentioned above, bedtime story is about family bonding and the exploration to more interactivity. Lastly, if you didn’t purchase YouTube Red, you even need to wait for a few seconds to skip the ad and start watching the bedtime stories online.

3. Apps
Some app developers develop the bedtime stories app for kids so that parents can find abundant bedtime stories in one place, reading the e-version, watch videos or listen to children's bedtime stories audio as you wish. The app can be downloaded for free but to get the funny bedtime stories for kids downloaded on your device, you need to purchase it.


The shortcoming is similar to that on YouTube bedtime stories: Resulting reliance on devices and failing to rebuild family bond during bedtime comfort.

4. Hardcover Bedtime Stories from Bookstore
The most ideal form of bedtime stories, from my point of view, is hardcover storybooks. We can sit our baby somewhere comfortable, cuddle up with your child and put his/her favorite stuff animal toys nearby. Then, prepare several storybooks for his/her option.


Use different emotions and sounds while reading to your kids can foster social and emotional development of your kids. Keep asking your kids question about the stories can enhance social development and comprehensive skills. Keep reading can help your kids form the habit of reading. Buy your kids a bookshelf and keep buying classic bedtime stories for kids, bedtime moral stories or inspirational stories for kids when you drop by the bookstore. Differences will widen as time pass by, compared to those who don’t read much.

Part 4. Perfect Book Genres As Bedtime Stories for Kids

There are a great number of books genres listed in physicals and online bookstore. How to choose the right bedtime books that appropriate at his/her age. Which genre of books are perfect for your 3-year-old and what story for 10-year-old?

1. For Toddlers:
Alphabet Books;
Comics;
Pictures books;
Fairy tales;
Concept books;
Pop-up Books;
Rhythmic books


2. For Preschool:
Fantasy;
Magic books;
Science books;
Action books;
Adventure;
Novels;
Moral books


3. For Teenagers:
Travel;
Drama;
Poetry;
History;
Encyclopedias


Books are treasure banks storing wisdom passed down from generation to generation and Learning is the eye of the mind. It’s never too much to emphasize the importance and benefits of reading. Bedtime stories for kids are not only a best timing to rebuild family bonds but also reading skill enhance activities that do good to kids brain development. The last tip I would like to share with you is: Choose short bedtime stories for kids because you never wish to obey your kids' bedtime routine after reading stories for your kids for about 30 minutes, isn’t it? 5-minute bedtime stories will be ideal.

When did you start reading stories to your kids? Do you remember the first storybooks you read him/her? Please leave comments below to share your parenting experience with other moms.


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