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When my twin boys were born, I was very excited to read to them. They had received a lot of neat books as gifts, and I was lookingforward to sharing their books with them.

What I wasn't expecting was them not focusing on a book for morethan a second or two so I could read to them! Reading to babiescan be challenging when there are so many things in the world toexplore, but here are some tips that have worked for me.

There are many different types of books available for babies. Board books and cloth books work best for babies so they canhandle them and drool on them without doing much damage to them.

If your baby isn't interested in one type of book, keepintroducing different books until you find one he is interestedin. One of my sons loves books with pictures of real babies inthem. He loves to look at their smiling faces. For Christmas hereceived a board book called "Tom Arma's Paw Print Parade". TomArma (a famous baby photographer) has a new line of baby boardbooks available at http://www.amazon.com. My son has anotherboard book called "Happy Baby Words" fromhttp://www.priddybooks.com. This book pictures babies gettingdressed, eating, etc. He loves to look at the pictures in thatbook.

My other son loves cloth books. Sesame Street has a book called"Get Dressed with Elmo" that is his favorite. This book isavailable at http://www.softplayforkids.com. This is aninteractive book where a toddler can zip zippers, fasten buttons,attach velcro, etc. A baby can't do these activities, of course,but my son loves to flip the soft pages and play with the itemsin the book.

My boys are 10 1/2 months old, and I find that they will look atbooks by themselves longer than they will let me read to them. Imake sure to have books in every room of the house that they findwhen they are crawling around, and they will stop and look atthem (of course they are finding my books too!). They especiallylike looking at books in bed. When they are going to sleep theywill lie in their beds and roll around with their favorite bookin their hands. I've peeked in their room to find one of themsitting in his bed turning the pages of his favorite Elmo book. If I were to try to read it to him he would instantly try tocrawl away.

I figure just exposing my boys to books at this age willinfluence their desire to want to read, even if they don't feellike indulging my desire to read to them. I have found one timethey will let me read to them, however...when I plop them in bed! Right when the tears are about to start I pull out their favoritebook and read it to them in their crib. One son stands holdingon to the edge of his crib (hoping I'll change my mind and pickhim back up) while I read his book to him. I have a captiveaudience and they are distracted from their initial reaction tobeing put in bed. After I read their stories they generally letme leave without a fuss!

Happy reading!

(Note to publishers: A baby photo is available athttp://www.christian-parent.com/baby-books.shtml if you wouldlike to include it with the article.)