Baby TV

One of the habits I would like to not pass on to my daughter is my somewhat extreme television watching. It's such a habit to enter a room and automatically turn on the TV - even if I have no intention of watching anything right away. But I then will usually get sucked in. To stop this habit I thought I would follow the advice of the AAP and not show TV to Saffron for the first 2 years of her life. I knew this was probably not going to happen but why not set your goals high?

The first roadblock to this challenge was defining what it really meant. Does this mean not having the TV on while she is in the room, even if she can't see it (she is known to contort herself in awkward positions to get a glimpse of the plasma) or does it just mean not putting on TV for the sole purpose of HAVING her watch it (Baby Einstein, Teletubbies, etc)

I have tried to not have the TV on at all which really is better for me as well. I get a lot more done if I am not constantly distracted by the TV. But I have chilled out about having, say, Wimbledon on in the background while she is playing on the floor. I can tell you right now that the kid is going to be very knowledgeable of the Olympics in a few weeks as well.

But I was still not crazy about the idea of setting her in front of the TV to watch "Baby TV". It just doesn't make sense to me that babies can learn anything from television shows until they can understand their surroundings a little bit more - which for me I think is older than 1 but younger than 2 - really it's like the Supreme Court trying to define pornography - I feel like I'll know the time when she can learn something from Sesame Street when I see it. And I haven't seen any signs of that yet. I'm sure for every kid/parent duo it is different.

But fast-forward to yesterday when Saffie was having a truly miserable day. There was crying, eye rubbing, yelling out from the crib, crying, whining, pouty lips, etc. The kid couldn't get to sleep. After trying everything I could think of to get her to relax I finally set her in a stroller beside my chair and put on a Lullaby Baby Einstein DVD which I had received as a gift. And there was the magic of TV. It soothed her, distracted her from whatever was bothering her, actually put her to sleep in about 20 minutes. Sure she only slept 45 minutes but she slept - and was much happier afterwards.

Good job Baby TV!