Thanks Brillkids team, I managed to get both LR and LM with the mothersday discount. Still not sure how I am going to use LR for teaching Chinese though. Tried downloading some chinese flash cards in the library but looks like I need some special software to run them, for example, .pl files?

I was a lawyer, actually quit before I got pregnant as wasn't enjoying it and felt that I needed a break. But now, I realise being a stay-at-home-mum is really hard and my old job seems like a walk in the park!   

No immediate plans to go back to work though as combining full time work with being a mum is just going to be completely unmanageable and my stress level is going to shoot through the roof. Although will probably return to work in another 6 month to 1 year, if we don't get another baby that is! 

Interesting article Trinity - are you based in the UK? I am really quite concerned about safety issues for children in the UK. I live in London and no, it doesn't feel very safe for children and I hear that there are young gangs terrorising other kids and bullying in school and what have you. I am seriously considering not bring up my child in this country. 

Same here. Yesterday I entered the mothersday code to see how much LR & LM would cost and it worked. Now I just went back to buy it and the code doesn't work anymore! I enter the code in the coupon box then click activate coupon but the price is still $169. Hopefully someone can make it work again before the coupon expires! 

Well no rollerblading or West End shows for me anyhow with the baby! 

Trinity Papa, thanks for the tips. I hadn't thought about the distance being too close, now that you mentioned, I should definately keep an eye on the distance!

I am Taiwanese KL, a Taiwan board would be very nice , thanks! 

Zoe, I am in Wimbledon, the other side of London 

Hi, I've been in the UK for 20 years, since I was 12 - now I've definately given away my age! Before that was from Taiwan. KL, I also spent Uni years in Cambridge (and Coventry, and Oxford, and New York... I studied a lot!), but otherwise always been in London. 

Thanks Curly, I want to get the book in Mandarin but do you know where I can get it online as am based in London, England?

My son is 11 months old and I started reading with him when he was 9 months old. As he never sat still, I thought he would never be interested, but he was hooked within a couple of weeks.

At the begining he didn't seem interested, then I realised I had to go really fast and keep to 1 sentance per page to maintain his interest. Bright bold pictures or ones with textures, flaps or holes (!) are a hit. He also likes ones with (short) nursery rhymes. Also I always raise the corner of the next page so that when he gets bored he will just turn the page (in fact its his favourite thing to do). The idea is to get him as physically involved in the "reading" as possible as he is a very physical baby. A thing that I do now is to point at the words as I read (as part of my effort to teach him to read) so big clear text is important. Again when I first started the pointing, he didn't like it much but now he is used to it and seems to enjoy it.

With the DM method, I haven't read the entire book yet but somehow it seems more intuitive to me to show the flash cards with pictures of the words on the reverse, so I guess I didn't follow strictly the DM method which is to show words with no pictures? I just can't imagine my son being interested in just the words and I am talking about Chinese which already look rather more like pictures than English words do. And also surely I would want him to know what the words actually mean? I have been showing him single word flash cards since 3 weeks, in his high chair just before his meals and so far he seems to enjoy them. My biggest trouble is that he keeps wanting to grab them and gets very upset that I don't let him - anyone got tips on this?  

Ok I see now that YBCR gives video clips so more moving images than flash cards. Thanks for clarifying that.

It seems to me that I should probably start with physical flash cards + YBCR first and then provided my baby is getting through the flash cards, get the LR as an easier to use, expanded flash card system.

Would be very excited if they bring out YBCR in Mandarin (my first language) and German (my husband's first language).

Thanks nhockaday for the info on LR. 

Can you give me an idea of how much material is pre-loaded on LR as compared to YBCR's content? Because I can't understand why people are combining YBCR with LR then if LR does the same thing plus more anyways? Also, once I want to start teaching phrases and sentences, I can use the LR to do this then?

Yes Hypatia I agree, I should probably just let him take the books out and put them back for him, although he works too fast for me   

Teo also started off trying to shut the books or so I thought but then I realised he was actually trying to turn the pages except all he could manage was to shut the book, so I give him a helping hand by lifting the next page up a little and now turning the pages is what he enjoys the most from reading! Today I also started pointing to the texts as I read (after reading a thread on this forum) and he seemed to notice the words for the first time, so I think I will carry on with this new practice. It worked particularly well with a rhyme book. 

Hi I am very excited to have found this forum, there are so many dedicated parents here it is really inspiring!

I am from Taiwan originally but have lived in London for most of my life so I speak Mandarin (classic form) and English. My husband is also Taiwanses but was borught up in Austria so his first language is German. I am keen to bring my boy up as at least bilingual or possibly trilingual and plan to teach him reading and maths soon but have found starting the process surprisingly daunting. Now that I have found all of you though I feel so much better!

The trilligual aspect is a complicating factor, as I am not sure whether I should teach him to read Chinese first or English, or both plus the German? I speak Mandarin to him, my husband tries to sepak to him in German, but as we speak English to each other, it all gets a bit mixed up! Any tips?