This Article provides a number of tips for choosing the right bedtime reading material for your child, as well as tips for reading books to your child. I will discuss the types of books as well as how to read the books in such a way that your child will love them.

Pick Books About Sleeping: Since part of the purpose of reading books to your child is to help your child go to bed, one of the best ways to do this is to read your child books about going to sleep. There are a lot of children's books that have sleeping on the final page, but that really isn't enough. There are plenty of great books that are actually about going to sleep. Perhaps the best one is "Goodnight Moon", where the entire second part of the book has the child saying goodnight to everything introduced in the first part.

Have a Variety of Books: Toddlers have fairly short attention spans. They will grow tired of a book after about a week of reading. Have a series of books that you cycle through. You'll know when your child is bored when he or she starts to stop paying attention when you bring out the book or asks for a new one. Don't worry. After a week, you can reintroduce the book and your toddler will find it fascinating again.

Talk About the Pictures: Remember that your toddler can't read yet, so the words might be a bit hard for him or her to follow. One great idea is to talk about what is going on in the pictures as you go through. For example, in "Goodnight Moon", there's a little mouse on all of the double-page pictures. Ask your child where the mouse is on each picture. If there's a child who looks something like your child, pretend that it's your child in the picture, and discuss what your child is doing in the picture.

Let Your Child Finish Sentences: After reading a book about ten times, your toddler will basically memorize the story. Let your child say the last word on each page. This keeps your child interested, and gives your child a sense of accomplishment. It also makes it so that you and your child are reading the book together.

Read Calmly: It might be fun to have all the little animals make authentic sounding animal noises, but it actually gets a child excited to the point where it is harder for the child to go to sleep. This doesn't mean you need to be boring, though. Use pitch, such as a higher-pitched voice for child characters and a deeper one for adults to keep the story interesting.