Sleepy Little Yoga By: Rebecca Whitford By: Martina Selway

Sleepy Little Yoga is a great way to introduce your little ones to the discipline of Yoga.  My girls love to read this book before bed at night.  We get out our mats and start our poses.  The book keeps it simple for kids and has them mimic animals with their poses.  They definitely relate to it and they think it is so much fun.  This book is a perfect way to get the kiddos ready for bed and have a little fun doing it!  It is wonderful to incorporate a healthy habit for their little bodies before bed.  Don't forget grownups to get down and do it with them while you are reading them this book!
Happy bedtime Yoga reading!

The Going To Bed Book By: Sandra Boynton

The Going to Bed Book is a really silly way to send your little sleepy heads to bed!  This board book is loved by my girls.  All the animals on the ship are getting ready for bed and they do a lot of the same rituals my girls do but after they brush their teeth "And when the moon is on the rise, they all go up...to exercise!"  Isy and Emy love that part!
But when the moon is high in the sky they are all in bed being "rocked" to sleep by the sea.  This is a really fun book that can easily become apart of your bedtime ritual.

Here is link to the authors website :
http://www.sandraboynton.com/sboynton/Introduction.html

She really has a lot of great children's books to read and they are never short on silliness!

The House in the Night By: Susan Marie Swanson Illustrated By: Beth Krommes

This book will captivate you right away with the art work on every single page.  It is stunning to see such vibrancy from the use of only black, white and gold throughout the entire book. The House in the Night is a simple bedtime book that will have your little cutie pie feeling safe, protected and cozy by the end of the story.  The text starts  “In the house burns a light. In that light rests a bed. On that bed waits a book.”  The light in the book will illuminate you. It will feel like the universe is taking you in and you can rest your head knowing the sun, stars, moon and everything you hold dear to you will be there again when you awake.

My girls took to this book immediately.  It is a wonderful and calming way to say goodnight to your little ones.  Getting caught up in the pictures is have the fun and even I am in awe of the beauty in this book.

Beth Krommes won the 2009 Caldecott Medal for her illustrations.

My Go To Bed Book 50th Anniversary Special Edition By: Hildegarde Ford Illustrated By:Mary Win

My Go To Bed Book is such a sweet way to say goodnight to your little one.  It has charming illustrations and delightful rhymes that walk you through a bedtime routine.  Your children will love the simplicity of the message and will relate with the child's bedtime ritual.  It really is a classic book now celebrating its 50th anniversary!

Take a look at this website for information on this wonderful book which is also sold as an iPad app!  http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/mygotobedbook/index.html

Good Night, Gorilla By: Peggy Rathmann

 It is bedtime at the zoo and as the zoo keeper locks all the animals cages and says goodnight to each of them, the gorilla gets the zoo keepers keys and unlocks the cages behind him. All the animals quietly follow the zoo keeper to his house where they go to sleep in his room. When his wife says goodnight dear and turns out the light the room is lit up with all the animals eyes! She takes them all back to the zoo but as she does somehow the gorilla and mouse end up back in bed with the zoo keeper and his wife.

The kids loved this book and I remember Isy trying to pronounce the word hyena in the book and saying hi-yi-na. We would laugh and make her say it again and again! In each page of the book you will notice a pink balloon which gets farther and farther away. We always had fun trying to spot it. Also take note to all the cute things in each of the animals cages. They are like little cribs for the animals. The girls also would mimic the wife's face when she finds the animals in her bed and then we would say "good night" very fast and point to all the animals eyeballs on the next page. This book is really fun and simple to read.

So say good night to all the animals and your little cutie tonight with this great book!

I'll See You in the Morning By: Mike Jolley Pictures by: Mique Moriuchi

This is a board book I have checked out of the library on many occasions to read to the girls.  The books rhymes and message is so sweet and comforting and a very good way to send off the kids to sleep.  Isabela at one time had a hard time with being in the dark like many little kiddos do and I liked reading her this passage in the book "Don't be afraid of darkness.  Don't be afraid, my sweet.  The night is just a blanket that helps the earth to sleep."  The pictures are adorable, a little silly, and perfect for children to admire while you read to them.   Have fun tonight with your little one and give them a beautiful story to soothe them to sleep!

Tuck me In! By: Dean Hacohen & Sherry Scharschmidt

This is a great story for toddlers, and preschool aged children. In this book you get to "tuck" the animals into bed for the night with an adorable "blanket". "It's time for bed. Who needs to be tucked in? I do." and each animal takes a turn getting tucked in until at the end the book asks "Does anyone else need to be tucked in? Do you? Good night, you!" My littlest daughter would sit with this book for 30 minutes at a time tucking the baby animals into bed. This is an easy book for little kids to memorize and it is definitely a great bed time book! Have fun with your kids tonight and check out this book from the library and have fun getting tucked in!

Bear Snore On By: Karma Wilson Illustrated By: Jane Chapman

I received this book in a box of Cheerios many years ago in 2003 before I even had children.  Cheerios has a program called Spoonfuls of Stories where they include a full length book in a box of Cheerios. The paperback books are small and include the English and Spanish words on each page.  Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories program started in 2002 and this year is celebrating their 10th anniversary!  My last trip to the grocery store I bought 4 boxes of Cheerios, not only because we eat them a lot for breakfast but also because Cheerios has put books from previous years into their boxes of cereal.  My girls were so excited as we rifled through all the boxes to get to books we haven't read before.  I really like that the books are small and portable giving me more room for more books and that they are essentially free!  The picture of the book Bear Snores On is my second copy of the book.  After reading the one from the box of Cheerios so much it needed a little rest from little hands.  To learn more about the Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories program here is a great link that shares what it is and all the books they have showcased throughout the past 10 years. 

http://pages.simonandschuster.com/spoonfulsofstories/

 Bear Snores On for us was a bedtime tradition for my first born from the time she was about 8 weeks old until about two years old and by then had a little sister to share in the tradition.  I could capture my little ones attention with the rhymes and the way you can almost skip with your voice through the words.  Since the bear is hibernating for the winter in a cave a little mouse, a hare, a badger, a gopher, a mole, a wren and a raven decide to take shelter in the cave against the harsh winter night.  This is the perfect opportunity to get silly and use a squeaky mouse voice, and I always pictured the hare as having a very deep voice.  The two extremes help bring a little babies attention right to your face, to your mouth to watch how words are formed. The animals all get together and take over the bears residence by having tea, popping corn, sharing honey nuts, having a party and making stew. To make the story come to life for my kiddos I take each page and make it fun.  When the wind howls and growls so do I.  When the mouse creep crawls I use my fingers to walk up their belly's to their necks (they are always waiting for this one and the tickle that is comes with.). "Hare burps big BURPS!" so does mom! (the fake kind that is.). Gopher and mole arrive through a tunnel in the floor so I use my fingers to come up from below and then when raven and wren fly in I use my flying fingers to go in for another tickle.  (Just thinking of this makes me laugh to picture the girls all tensed up at the neck knowing the tickle is coming!) The bear finally wakes up with a sneeze after the animals season the stew with pepper.  The best part for my girls is when we all make such a scene doing our fake sneeze.  It is very long, drawn out, and loud!  What could be more fun?  The bear at first is angry and there are a lot of fun verbs to act out followed by a whimpering from a bear feeling left out of the fun.  Don't worry about the bear though, mouse offers to make more tea and corn for him too!  So the bear stays up with his new friends and ends up being the one who can't sleep when morning comes.

If you like this book there are a quite a lot of books about Bear and his animal friends.  They all have wonderful rhymes and teach about friendship. 

This book another favorite.  The animals are all using sign language to sign for "more".