Router and modem re boot

Hello,
Ok sounds like most of you guys hee actually know what you are talking about. I'm a complete novice ! is there anyone out there who can advise me in good old plain english how to overcome this problem of loosing my internet connection.

I have a belkin router and NTL (Virgin media) modem. My desktop and two other laptops all go through the router. It is getting more and more common for me to lose my connection - it was working fine a year ago, but now is getting more and more unreliable. If i unplug the modem and the router for a few seconds then re wire them, my connection comes back ! it just gets frustrating when you have to do this once or twice each week.

Any ideas? please keep it simple ! :-)

Thanks

Andy