It’s all to do with the bedtime. Frog was given some books for her 1^st birthday, you see. Special books. Books which have an important place in my own childhood.

I’ve already banged on about how there’s been a story before bed since Frog was about four months old. Up until now, it’s always been the same one: Bedtime with Humphrey.

Don’t get me wrong. Humphrey’s a lovely little elephant and all that. But nine months of him is enough for anyone. By my calculations, we’ve read this book at least 270 times – I now know it off by heart. So it was time for a change.

After nearly two weeks of hell at bedtime, with Frog refusing to give in and go to sleep, preferring to shout and scream and wail in a (rather overly dramatic fashion) “Mamamamama”, I thought I’d bring a bit of Dogger to the bedtime table.

For those of you unfamiliar with children’s books, this isn’t some kind of seedy story about the act of driving to unfamiliar country roads to watch strangers do naughty things to each other (read: Dogging for that).

It’s a gorgeous book by Shirley Hughes about a boy who loses his favourite toy. I won’t spoil the ending, but if you grew up in the late 70s or 80s, you’ll probably know it anyway.

And just like magic, after an evening of Humphrey (we’re not quite ready to completely let go yet) and Dogger, Frog went to sleep. No tears. No dramatic wails. Just quiet thumb-sucking and blissful sleep.

So the next night we tried a bit of Peace At Last, another one of my childhood favourites. And what do you know? Result.

Tonight we’re going to introduce the Ahlberg’s classic Peepo! And there’s a whole list of other old faithfuls waiting in line after that.

But you can never have too many books. So what were your favourite childhood reads? Maybe I’ll add them to Frog’s bedtime reading list – we’re still looking for one to knock Humphrey off the top spot.

The post Old friends appeared first on Mother's Always Right.