To let baby watch tv?!

[Wishfulmakeupping]

My dd is 5 months.
We do stuff everyday babygroups/meeting friends/family/shopping trips in morning and go for a walk in afternoons as well as playing on play mat for couple hours.
But I do let her watch baby tv for about an hour-1.5 in morning while I'm getting ready sorting out bag etc and and another 30min to an hour at teatime.
Is this so wrong? People have said its too much tv and she shouldn't be watching any.

My daughter is 5 months and I watch a bit of Cbeebies with her at lunchtime. It usually holds her attention long enough for me to Hoover up a sarnie and a cuppa. Don't feel guilty about it.

Disney junior saved my sanity. It keeps my little one interested while I have a cup of tea and eat lunch.

When you have other DC who watch TV how can you avoid it?

Its on when DH and I are in, baby is there, her eyes....looking?!

from 5 months old my dd has had a dose of kids tv in the morning - its the only way we can all get ready for work/nursery and get out of the house by 07.30. i'm increasingly finding she's learning lots of words directly from peppa pig or ben+holly... and its not like she's sat in front of it ALL DAY.
so in summary, no, i dont think its a problem - in my opinion.

5mths is very young, and that's a lot of TV.... more than I could bare to watch in a day and I'm a fully grown adult.

Trouble is with the 'babysitting' excuse, I think, is that it becomes relied upon, particularly if it's a habit that begins when the
dc are very young. Far too many children these days have no idea how to entertain themselves.

ksrwr.... I'm sure she would learn just as many, and a whole lot more, if you were to talk to her whilst getting ready. Babies only need a little interaction to keep them entertained.

I used to stick mine in the high chair with some (safe) utensils whilst cooking, and I would talk throughout, pretending I was on a cookery show this meant I could get dinner cooked, LO was entertained, and he probably learnt something.

My son loves the tv, and gives me 5 mins here and there to do bits that need doing. Which I will appreciate more when number 2 comes next month!! It definitely hasn't affected his development and if he had a choice between tv or going out he'd choose going out everytime.

YANBU It is a great vocab builder so long as they also get input from real human beings as well.

DD watches Mickey Mouse clubhouse, sometimes a bit of jungle junction a bit before or after. She is 8 months old. We have it recorded for when she is a bit bored/distressed.

It was often the only way I could put DS1 down and get him off for a nap without being held. I'd put him in his swing in front of ready steady cook and lay down on the sofa beside him and we'd both have a wee nap. He couldn't stand calm and quiet at all, even when he was tiny.

We liked watching cookery programs - I watched a lot of them while I was nursing him. When he was getting closer to a year old, he'd mimic Nigella's Mmmm Mmmm noises as he ate!

In my experience most of the friends I have who have been extremely precious about watching TV, like literally stopping dead coming into a room with one on, making a huge fuss and turning the baby away, have had lots of family help, work, nursery and are with their DC for a fraction of the time SHAMS are, or those with no help at all.

Its not an excuse as such but it is easy to be precious about these things when you are not in a daily morning till noon slog with no one to hand the baby too, to watch the baby or to help you.

Wow SonShines, patronising much?

My DS used to scream regardless of how much talking, singing and dancing I did when he was little and I was trying to get ready.

I am a speech therapist, one of the very professionals who spends an awful lot of time talking about the supposed detrimental effects of a bit of television, but I really do think that at a young age, it's just lights on a screen.

Once, people spoke about how print would destroy the human mind. It didn't. It changed aspects of how it was used, probably (as is true with most things) for better and for worse.

I didn't let my ds1 watch any television before the age of 1 and then only sparsely. I didn't even feel particularly strongly about it, I just couldn't stand the noise because I was significantly depressed. Yet I found the silence hard too.

My ds2 (1) has seen a bit of teletubbies some days. He also sees some television when ds1 (now 3 and a half) watches it. There are many weeks we don't watch it at all. There are also many weeks where we watch a fair amount. Certainly when I was pregnant and throwing up, it was on a good bit. Lo and behold, my children can both speak, play independently, attend, interact - even the one year old who has moderate hearing loss in both ears has a few words, bang on target for his chronological age.

AIBU makes me laugh with the faux confusion about why anyone would ever put the television on. OP, you should check out the Sanctimommies facebook page. I can see some contenders on this thread already.

And yy to PastelMacaroons.

PastelMacaroons... I'm precious about TV's. We have one, but it doesn't have an aerial, we use it for the occasional DVD. At one point I had 3 DC under 5 (one a newborn) and no help or support, my husband was working 12 hour days and we have no family nearby. Still precious about TV's though. I'm proud that my DC can spend a day in and not be bored, they have their own imagination...not an imagination constructed of Disney characters. We had some friends children round the other day and they come from a house that has the TV on constant. They were bored and whinging within minutes of being out in the garden...

yanbu the colours stimulates babies the music is great too, baby TV is a bit trippy though I can remember watching with dd2 with look about me but she loved it

I'm also a speech and language therapist and the official advice is certainly no TV for young children. Regular, sustained exposure to TV in under 2s has been linked to greater risk of delayed language development.

However, living in the real world, especially if you have more than one child and have things to get on with it, I can see how it can be a safe way to keep the children entertained and quiet for short periods. Just please don't be under any illusions that it will be doing wonders for their language development - they will always gain much more from time with a real person than from a screen.

I don't see what's patronising about SonShines's comment - it sounds like a great idea!

If an hour or two of tv a day could genuinely affect brain development it would be a fantastic breakthrough especially for children with special needs. Think of how much treatment and therapy could be delivered by this fantastical mind-altering machine. In actual fact it is the child's entire environment that affects their development. If a child is watching tv because everyone ignores her and it's her only source of input then naturally she will suffer, due to neglect. For a loved child with plenty going on tv is just a bright interesting noisy object that they happen to look at now and again. Despite what some people think the tv will not shoot brain-rotting lasers through the child's eyes.

CailinDana! Haven't seen you on here for ages

Very good point about taking the entire environment into account. Having the TV on does affect the environment though - it's not so much what the baby is watching on TV that's the problem, just having it on in the background means that everyone in the environment tend to interact less with each other and use less spoken language.

Not been well lotta - pnd after dd was born. On the up now thanks in no small part to some fantastic mners.

Agree about tv affecting the environment although i do remember reading a study that showed children growing up in noisy environments (due to tv/many other children) cope better at the beginning of school due to being able to process sounds from multiple sources simultaneously. Admittedlyhas little effect

Later on.

I'm really sorry to hear that CailinDana MN is like a nest of vipers sometimes but there are some fantastic people around. I'm glad you're feeling better and hope that DD is doing well

Dd is a stroppy little cutie, doing fab thanks lotta. Doesn't bother with silly things like sleeping or taking a bottle but other than that is just gorgeous, and ds is so kind to her, it's really sweet.