Too much reading time?

[rwilk]

My daughter loves books. Which is great because I do too.  But I'm worried she spends way too much time reading, and not enough on other things. She typically wakes up between 5-6 and reads until 730 or so, sometimes until 8. Even if I go into her room at 7 or 730, she'll just ask me to either leave, or read on the futon next to her.  She then usually reads for an hour or so in the afternoon, and then again after we put her to bed from about 830-1030 or 11. All in all 5-6 hours a day total. One day a week she typically adds an extra few hours in the morning as well.

 

When I say "reading" I mean a combination of things.  Some books in her room she is able to decode and read.  Others she recites from memory, makes up a related story, or tries to retell what she can remember of the story. I don't want to take the books out of her room, because she will just sit there talking to herself the same amount of time.  But I can't get around the fact that it seems....unhealthy to be in front of a book so much during the day when this young. 

 

If I try to rush her from her book, or we can't spend that much time reading in the morning, she'll just bring a book wherever we are. She'll happily sit at a playground reading, find the book nook in a museum.....really just constantly with a book.  

 

I wouldn't really care, but she's showing delays in other areas, so I'd really like to work on her delays.  She lags in gross motor so more activity would clearly be good for her.  

 

Would you try to discourage this?  If so, how?  Will she just grow out of it once she figures out reading a bit better?  FWIW we do basically no screen time (she's afraid of screens---sensory thing I think), so it's not like she sits for both reading and TV.  

[mathnerd]

I think that the sleep issues need to be addressed first - it looks like she is sleeping from 8:30-9:30-ish pm onwards to 5-6 am - this might be OK in my household because my DS has serious sleep issues and is under the care of a pediatrician for it, but normally pre-schoolers need 10-11 hours of sleep - I think that you should take the books away from her bedroom because it might encourage her to sleep more. 11 hours of sleep, lots of outdoor play/exercise, social outlets, eating, personal hygiene, enrichment like art and music plus 5-6 hours of reading are not possible to fit into a preschooler's day (she is 3.5 years old, right?). There is simply not enough time for it and it is not developmentally appropriate.

 

Try to limit long stretches of reading - I would cut off reading after 1 or 2 hour stretches. Another issue is the eye strain from reading for 4-5 hours stretches (poor posture too if she is reading in bed). My DS will read all day long if he is engrossed in a book and he also talks a lot to himself in character voices from the books or retells the stories - but, I enforce physical activity after a 45 minute stretch of reading because sometimes he complains that the back of his neck hurts from looking downward into a book when reading on a couch for long hours. I set a 45 minute timer and tell him that he needs to take a break from reading and do other things when the timer goes off. I have something else lined up for him immediately afterward. He can go back to his book after doing other things for a while.

The books that he reads are in a wheeled bin that we put in the living room and not his bedroom so that he does not read after lights are out.

[Arcadia]

My kids were behind in gross motor skills and also avid readers. More than 6hrs per day easily. My boys did gym exercise (what they were taught at gym) at home twice a day and went for weekly gym classes at the gymnasium. We saw improvement within a year.

 

I won't cut down on her reading time since its only 6 hrs. I would enforce setting aside time everyday for gross motor skills.

 

ETA:

Mine didn't need much sleep and still shoot up like a bamboo.

[regentrude]

5-6 hours of reading leave many hours for physical activity in a day - more than she can spend on execising her gross motor skills.

I would let her read and make sure she has plenty of outdoor exercise during the other times.

[Kerileanne99]

How old is she?

 

I wouldn't be as concerned about the reading time as much as the lack of sleep. If she wakes up at 5 am to read, and doesn't go to bed until 11 pm, you are looking at 6 hours?

 

There are plenty of hours in a day for that much reading AND physical activity...but I would attempt to provide them when it doesn't interfere with sleep.

[kiwik]

From the 'some she can decode' statement i assume under 7. In that case 5 to 6 hours of reading and 11 or so hours sleep wouldn't leave much time for other stuff. I , also would concentrate on sleep.

[CadenceSophia]

Ditto the sleep. Sometimes my kids will wake up early if they are excited to do something. An "ok to wake" clock might help us you think that is the issue. My 4 year old might spend that much time per day with books, or at least with all "school" type activities combined, by her own choice. It is really hard to get her outside. While I don't claim there is anything wrong with bringing books everywhere (I take my phone and kindle!) I have had to set some boundaries so that she plays and sleeps. Lights go out at a certain time. If that doesn't make it too dark to read (live in Alaska so this is a problem all summer) I specify that she must lay flat with her head on the pillow. Then I threaten to take away her books of I catch her with her head up. I don't allow books at the table during meals or to be taken outside during play time. She sleeps between 10 and 12 hours a night.

[Dmmetler]

My DD was a very early reader, and one reason was because she had gross motor delays. Reading was a way that she could explore her world when she physically couldn't yet do it. So I pushed her into physical activities, put her in a MDO where they spent about 4 hours of a 6 hour day outside, and gave her opportunities to want to use her body. At 4, she asked about a rec cheer team at the local community center, and she's now going into her 7th year of cheer, plus additional tumbling classes and dance classes. She's rather proud of bucking the stereotype ;).

 

She also was (and is) a poor sleeper who takes a long time to slow her brain down and sleep. That's been an ongoing challenge as well. For her, reading to sleep doesn't work. It just revs her up. Drawing/writing before bed helps more, but the real answer was to put her to bed 2 hours before I expect her to actually go to sleep.

 

We don't allow any screen time after dinner. That hard and fast rule seems to help a lot.

[SparklyUnicorn]

It doesn't sound excessive to me.

 

As a kid there were days I didn't leave my room because I read all day.  I'd still be doing that if I could get away with it.  LOL

 

So it's not all day...

 

And the sleep thing.  One of mine was a lousy sleeper for many years (and an early reader).  At 13 he seems to be making up for lost sleep time. 

[rwilk]

Thank you all for the helpful comments and advice.  She is still 3.5, so I'm slightly concerned about the amount of sleep she gets. However, I don't think the books are actually keeping her up. We sometimes are somewhere without books, and she still basically doesn't sleep. She just talks to herself, telling stories, processing her day, and working through things in her head. We've tried all sorts of things to help quiet her mind---mindfulness, meditation, yoga---but her mind doesn't like to shut down. Mine doesn't either, so I feel for her.  

 

dmmetler, your daughter's story makes me feel so much better about things. It's great to hear that she's so physical now.  

 

I get frustrated because I have no idea what is normal/healthy for her. She has some sensory issues, so her time outside is limited by her ability to handle the stimulation. As she gets older, she's better able to express/explain the sensory experiences. She sees/tracks little movements and can listen to/process multiple conversations at once (which is creepy). She finds it so overwhelming and exhausting, and seems to be unable to turn it off. I think sometimes she loves books/reading because it's so visually controlled.  I read parenting books sometimes, and it feels like they kids they describe are so completely different than mine on all spheres that I can't translate things. She's closer to a 6-7 year old in some ways, but like a 2 year old in others. I sometimes feel like she's a computer attempting to download all the information in the world. 

 

 

[Arcadia]

Classical music on the radio or podcasts always work for making my boys fall asleep.

 

They get sensory overload and upset/hyped up from environmental "noise".

 

I think it is the classical music newscasters that have sleep inducing voices because classical music CDs don't work on my boys.

 

Plenty of asychronous kids on this accelerated board so you are in good company :)

 

ETA:

Car rides also make my boys sleepy at that age.

 

We even put them in the double jogger (capacity 100lb) and stroll them to the supermarket. They fell asleep on the way there.

[RKWAcademy]

My son doesn't need as much sleep as his twin sister.  Some kids just need less.  He stays up late in his room and gets up with the sun.  And at that age he loved books even though he couldn't read.  He did very similar things as your daughter.  I wouldn't worry if she's getting plenty of exercise.

 

As a PP mentioned, I'd read that much every day if I could get away with it, too!

[SKL]

When my kids were tots, one of them would gravitate toward books all the time.  (She is now 8 and still loves books more than anything else.)  I forced the exercise issue by taking long walks (no books along), swimming, kiddy sports lessons, etc.  I also tried to use yoga/dance/music videos to encourage movement, but my bookish kid would stubbornly sit on the couch watching the rest of us move.  :P

 

At 3.5, my kids were in preschool, which ironically limited the amount of time they could read.  The preschool was structured and everyone had to do A, then B, then C ... to accommodate most kids' interests / developmental needs, there was more physical stuff than academic stuff at that age.  I'm not even sure they had access to books outside of specific reading times.

[Dmmetler]

The "attempting to download" is about right. DD, at that age, was basically Johnny 5 from Short Circuit "More input!!" Always, constantly, "More Input". Books were a way for her to get that. I suspect that if she'd had internet access, she would have been an inveterate googler really early :). She always had a high need for stimulation. She was the baby who would cry at home, but did quite well at Target where all the displays were hanging from the ceiling. I went to all of the "baby matinees" for her first year, because that was one of the few places she was relaxed and "easy".

 

Moving that to outside where it was more physical helped with motor skills, but also because there's a lot of input. It gave her a different skill set for her brain to work on. As she got older, college lectures are good, too (including Coursera, edX, Great Courses) because the content is hard enough to engage her. She'll often stretch or do physical conditioning (or clean her room!) with a Great Courses lecture happening at the same time.

[bakpak]

How about making her an awesome reading nook outside? Combining the calming nature of reading plus gently working on her sensory tolerance for being outside might work well for her. It is a good idea to teach her in general to take visual breaks to look at far distances every once in awhile for reading, as this supposedly helps prevent near-sightedness. I still have trouble remembering to do this ...