Long before my son was born, and even before I became pregnant, I knew reading would be an important part of my child’s early years. My mom read to me early and often, and I credit that as one of the reasons why I had such a love of books, that grew into a passion for writing (remember me, the book nerd?). I wanted to pass on that passion to my child, so there was no question that we’d read stories every night from the time he or she was tiny to the time when he or she started reading to me. And then my child would write a best seller by age 20 and make millions from the movie adaptation, and we’d be set for life.

Lately, there’s been a lot of news about scientific evidence showing how awesome it is to read to your children (YAY! Go mom for doing that for me even before the “experts” said it was good!). But for it to really work, you have to start reading to them when they are tiny little babies. One NPR story I recently heard about it actually used the words “from birth” to describe when you should start reading to them. I’ll come back to that later.

Flash back to our childbirth class, where one of our first “assignments” was to read a book or sing a song to our babies every night. Keep in mind that our babies were still very much in our bellies at that point. But there was some cool study that all the hippie mamas love about how a child responds to a story they were regularly read while in the womb. It Makes a Difference! It’s Important!

So some nights I’d go into the nursery, sit in the glider and read Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! While I did it a couple of nights a week at best, it most certainly did not happen every night. And since I didn’t start doing it until 30 something weeks into the pregnancy, was I already depriving my unborn child of the power and intellect imparted by books? Holy crap, there was already such guilt!!!

And then the baby came. When. The f@#!. are you supposed to read to a newborn? My schedule looked something like this:

• Breastfeed: 1 hour at a time 8 or more times a day = 8 hours a day or more of a little thing attached to a nipple.
• Pump: immediately after each feeding, because the lactation consultants said his brain would shrink if he didn’t gain more weight (more on that experience later). About 10 minutes at a time, 6-8 times/day = at least 1 hour of pumping per day.
• Sleep: Baby usually slept right after feeding, and when I was finished pumping I’d use those precious few minutes to eat, shower or maybe even catch a quick nap myself (but never all three!). I have no idea how long he slept. Pretty sure my memory’s blocked all that already.
• Baby wakes & cries: and we start all over again. rinse and repeat. and repeat. etc.

So yeah, there really was no time to do something like read a damn book to the kid. BUT I HAVE TO READ TO THE BABY EVERY NIGHT OR HE WILL BE YEARS BEHIND HIS CLASSMATES! He’ll never learn to ride a bike, and he’ll end up jobless and living with us when he’s 30! Slow down, mama. No, he won’t. (Well maybe he will, but probably not because I didn’t read to him every night when he was a newborn.)

So in those first weeks, there were no books. At that point I was too sucked into the baby vortex to even worry about guilt, so it was no biggie. Then I went back to work when he was 2 months old, and my wonderful mom came for a month to keep him before we shipped him off to day care. And she read to him!!! Every day!!! Then the guilt started (a LOT of the guilt started when I went back to work)… I felt guilty that I wasn’t the one reading to him every day, because by the time I got home he was way too fussy for that nonsense. Then I felt relief that she was reading to him so I didn’t have to, and he would still maybe write that best-seller one day. Then that slipped right back into feeling guilty for feeling relieved. A vicious cycle!!! But have no fears, it did get better.

By the time he started day care, at 3 months, he was starting to get a slight routine and I was finding that there actually was some time (most days) in between coming home from work, feeding, crying and sleeping that I could squeeze in a story. Now, at 5 months, he gets read at least one story almost every night by either me or the baby daddy (that’s my husband). Usually two, sometimes more than that (I’m talking short, 5-page or so board books… BTW, I just recently realized why board books are awesome – The pages don’t rip! Baby can stick them in his mouth and it’s OK! No paper cuts! And they’re the perfect size! I didn’t really get that before). Anyway, he grabs at the pages, tries to put them in his mouth and grabs at the colors, shapes and textures. Sometimes if he’s fussy when we start, READING CALMS HIM DOWN. And often, he “talks” while I’m reading. It’s pretty freakin’ cool.

So when I heard the latest story about reading to babies, I was psyched. We’re doing that! Our baby is the smartest because of us! But when the reporter said they should be read to “from birth” I LOL’d. Ha! She doesn’t know s#!%! And then I thought about how, if I’d heard that when I had a newborn and was already feeling inadequate about so many things, I’d probably melt into a puddle of tears because my baby’s brain was going to shrink because I had no time to read to him! I know she didn’t mean to, and its ultimately a fascinating and important topic, but the choice of words was not the greatest.

If you can read to your newborn (or infant, or toddler!) every night, or even most nights, that’s awesome!!! If you can’t, that’s fine too! Play music, sing a song, or just tell your baby about your day. Love your baby. That’s what counts. That HAS to be what counts, right?