Babies and TV

[mistyblue22]

Leonardo has been expressing interest in TV lately, well, he's interested in anything with sound and/or light ;) I was going to get him some Baby DVDs, but I'm not sure. Baby Einstein looks really cute and fun, but I've heard it can influence badly on baby's language development (there's always something

Comments

[engram_au]

I think that right now, his interest in TV is mainly because it is noisy and bright.

Baby Einstein I have mixed feelings about. The reason it has been said to delay language development is because it only contains pictures and non-language sounds to which a child is exposed at a time when they should really be getting language saturation so they learn to mimic speech. And I really don't think that exposing a baby to Mozart while showing puppets has a real brain development effect. You could achieve the same thing with better effect if you played a Mozart CD in the background while showing him puppets and TALKING to him so he learns the sounds you make while you talk and also gets to observe your face so he can learn to mimic the expressions you make when talking. These will be of most developmental effect and help.

If it keeps him quiet, find an episode of TNG that is fairly gentle and has no phaser fire in it and play that for him. Or grab a Sesame Street or Muppets DVD and put that on. The most important thing is that it will be bright, colourful and moving and have language in it. And it won't make YOU feel brain dead :)

[mistyblue22]

Thanks, Engram! Yes, that's what I think too. Baby shows nowadays don't seem to be educational in any way. Between some other baby shows, Baby Einstein seemed like the best choice, but I'm not too sure.

Leonardo knows how to keep himself entertained, and is a really good baby who cries only when hungry or sleepy (also, I have plenty of time right now to play and talk with him myself) but he likes to stare at the TV sometimes so I that's why I'm asking.