Baby Storytimes

Since I started at my library about a year and a half ago, I’ve been the sole leader of Lap Sit, our 0-23 month group. From my coworkers and other librarians, I’ve heard a lot of nervousness about leading storytimes for infants, so I thought I would share a general outline for my 20 minute Lap Sit.

A couple of quick tips first:

- Sometimes I’ll do themes and sometimes I won’t, but I don’t worry at all about having songs about the same topic. Babies don’t care and parents might notice or appreciate it, but in around 300 storytimes, I have never had an adult comment one way or another on a theme.

- It’s ok to change what you do throughout the week! I do anywhere from 2 to 6 storytimes a week and sometimes a song or a book will totally bomb on Monday so I’ll skip it next time.

- On the other hand, don’t worry about doing the exact same thing throughout the week! I have a couple families who come to multiple storytimes a week and are happy to do the same songs and stories again.

- Finally, just remember that your audience is full of babies! I never worry about how much my group is paying attention. I always say as long as 75% of my group is paying attention at any given time, that’s pretty good.

On to the Lap Sit! Here is a general outline I’ve been using with great success:

If You're Ready for a Story (to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It")

This is Big Big Big

ABCs

Open/Shut Them

Book #1
* For about a year I've been doing this as a group reading. We are fortunate enough to have enough copies of 6 different books so far that every baby gets his or her own copy and we (try to) read all together out loud.

3-4 songs

Book #2 (and only if total chaos hasn't yet set in)

3-4 songs

Bubbles

Goodbye song