When your child is teething, nothing is safe. The TV remote is just as likely to be gnawed on as the dedicated teething toys — or anything else within arm’s reach. Of course, teething isn’t the only part of early childhood that can be destructive. Energetic toddlers can create a lot of chaos as they learn to navigate the world and hone their motor skills. Most of the toys and games made for young children take that into account, but there’s one important category that generally falls short: books.
Creating positive reading habits is absolutely vital for a child’s development and should be started as early as possible. For many parents, that means reading books to your infant, or even before your baby is born. As soon as your child starts sitting up, grabbing, and crawling, reading can be a much more difficult endeavor. This is also around the time that books start getting beat up. It’s generally not purposeful because your child is still developing motor skills, but that doesn’t stop the torn pages, chewed corners, and other issues that make a book start falling apart at the spine. By the time your child leaves their toddler years behind, you may find that you’ll have to replace most of the books on their shelves if you want to have books for another child — or if you want keepsakes of their childhood.
Making Children’s Books Last
The ongoing problem with children’s books is the fight between using sufficiently durable materials and creating books that are easy for little hands to use. Those small books made of thick cardboard pages are great for a child’s first forays into reading since the sturdy cardboard can hold up against most of the damage an infant or young toddler will cause — though the corners may never be the same after your child starts teething. However, the problem with those sturdy cardboard books is that they aren’t particularly practical for making lasting storybooks.
Once your child hits the point that they’re flipping through books on their own, those thick cardboard books are slowly going to be pushed further to one side of the shelf in favor of longer books with more images. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it does mean a transition to books with more traditional pages before your child has really honed their motor skills. A sturdy cardboard cover will only help so much in terms of providing protection for the pages.
A Durable Alternative
When your child reaches the age of reading (or ‘reading’) on their own, it’s time to consider making a few books for them. Or don’t wait until they hit the paper page stage; with the right materials, you can create books that will hold up under the onslaught of teething. The answer is to print your own children’s books using TerraSlate waterproof paper.
Printing with our waterproof paper is a great way to create children’s books that will hold up to heavy use because our paper options are designed to hold up against much heavier use than a toddler provides. Our waterproof paper comes in a wide variety of sizes and colors, so you can make fun, vivid books. Better still, all of our options, from waterproof printer paper to adhesives to posters are tear-proof and colorfast as well as waterproof. Even more important when you have a toddler, our waterproof paper options aren’t just waterproof, they also repel grease, solvents, and chemicals so you can keep them clean and germ-free without damaging the printed materials.
Creating Your Own Books
Unfortunately, we don’t have a way for you to print off your child’s favorite Dr. Seuss books or anything else that’s been copyrighted unless you have permission to use the content. However, there are a variety of sites out there which provide templates so you can create your own tales. Options like Scribblitt, Story Jumper, and Little Bird Tales allow anyone to create digital tales. Create customized stories, or give your child a chance to use their own imagination as they get older. Then, simply print the book files using TerraSlate waterproof paper, bind them together (with staples, string, or even a local spiral binding service), and get reading!
Explore all of the TerraSlate waterproof paper options online and start making your own children’s books today!