Advice please. Fin LOVES his books. Like LOOOOOVES them. He'll carry one around most days and drag his bean bag with him and ust sit and look at the book at random intervals.

I'm all for encouraging a healthy interest in books and so love that he's so into books right now. I see this behaviour as a very positive one and

Problem is that Fin is VERY heavy handed and can be a bit "over-zealous" and often a book will get ruined. Flaps will get ripped off and even the most indestructable of card books get pages torn out.

Ian HATES this. Like REALLY hates it. To the point where Ian takes books off him and puts them on a high shelf and says he doesn't want him playing with books.

I'm pretty sure Fin doesn't intend to ruin his books... however I have been keeping a close eye on when books seem to get the most damage etc to see if it ties in with him being tired (he can be very destructive when tired - He hits a lot and throws things etc) to see if I can step in and only remove the books at this time.

Anyway I think Ian and I are close to having a disagrement about this. Who's right here? Should I only let him look at books supervised or risk some damaged books for the sake of him developing a healthy relationship with books? xx

Could you agree on some heavy duty ones, maybe from a charity shop that he could have just for looking at unsupervised and keep others just for reading with someone else?

Lo went through a stage just like this. We used to let him have free access to books but kept an eye on him. If he started getting rough with them we used to go and tell him he had to be gentle or that book would have to go and be fixed and he wouldnt be able to read it for a day or so. At first he didnt really understand but he did start to after a few weeks and now hes so gentle with his books and if a page is stuck together he asks us.

Evie went thru a stag like this and we got some thick board books that she couldnt rip and explained that we use gentle hand with books.

Now she has outgrown this stage she happily 'read' paper books and licks her fingers to turn the pages

Altho she has had a few paper cuts so i make sure im with her with paper books

we have his books seperated too. he has free access to all of his board books but his 'nice' books live on top of his wardrobe and he only gets these when we're reading to him at bedtime x

This. We have to seperate LO's too as she is still at the stage of ripping flaps and pages, even thick board books she somehow manages. She has some lovely books that are kept out of her way that we read to her and then some thick board books kept out for her at all times.

He has free access to any board books. He has one or two paper books that he also does and he's fine with them. Any expensive / nice gift paper books are on a shelf and we read them together.

I have a friend who doesn't let her little girl (19months) have any books and bless her when she comes to our house she goes straight for books and brings them to my knee to read, it makes me a bit sad.

Each to their own obviously but they'll never learn to look after them by not having either? X

Holly manages to ruin books too, she usually eats them and knackers their spines. DH goes mad (he's a librarian lol). She loves them though and I don't want to stop her from liking them. I think it's something they grow out of, you have to expect books to get a bit wrecked. I've worked in loads of libraries, and pretty much all younger kids board books etc get battered. The picture books stay in good condition for ages. They don't know that they're not toys at that age. As Fin gets older he'll learn not to be so heavy handed with them. Get books from the charity shop so it won't matter, or do what I do and let him batter library books (within reason or you'll get charged for them)

This sounds like Eva and her love for books and i just allow her to have board books and she has hundreds of them

Thanks ladies. That's pretty much what we do at the moment. He has some "heavy duty" card books he wanders with... but these easily get broken. We talk about it each time as he brings the book and ripped out pages to me all upset at what he's done lol. He has nicer books for laptime reading and these are out of reach. Flaps will get pulled off on our laps lol. Ian just cannot bear to see a book or toy get ruined... he was a very careful child and always looked after everything/put it all neatly etc so I think it hurts him to see toys getting battered. Funny bugger xx