In not letting 9mo ds watch children's TV?

[ScoobyC]

I have never put children's TV on for ds, and I haven't bought any Baby Einstein dvds etc and I am suddenly worrying that I am in some way depriving him as I have just realised that (some) other babies do watch TV.
So, this may be a ridiculous question (it really is amazing what you can worry about when you have a child), but does anyone have any thoughts on whether it is good for a baby's development to watch kids TV?
As background, this hasn't been a particularly thought out decision or anything, it's just that ds has never been a baby who sits, he is very active and so he wouldn't just sit and watch TV. For purely selfish reasons, if the tv is on it has adult programs on as I don't want to watch kids tv until I absolutely have to!

Oh, and about the self-regulating thing - I think I'm largely with Frances on this ... although I think we want to help our children learn to self regulate ... I waver.

A friend of mine, with four kids, had a very very relaxed food attitude, and found her kids did just eat crap. Last time we spoke about food, she was changing rules (less junk, less snacking right before meals). I think it's going well.

Well, for instance artificial sweeteners

you are the scientist but this is how I understand it:

the sweet taste without the calories confuses the part of the body that controls fullness - it tastes like it is going to satiate your appetite, but it actually contains no energy or nutrients for you at all

so if you regularly eat / drink diet products like this, you may well end up consuming MORE calories in the long term because your satiety control is all screwed up - your body is no longer sure whether a sweet taste means calories, or not

is that about right?

pmsl at idea of me being any sort of scientist.

yes agree re stuff like corn syrup, sweeteners etc, trans shite.

see, I don't tend to class those as food

I am talking about un-faffed with food.

I'm not a scientist, but I thought that artificial sweeteners just encourage people to have a high-gi diet, by encouraging their sweet tooth. Sugar works a lot like salt - the more you have, the more you want. And artificial sweeteners are very very sweet and encourage you to want more sweet stuff.

(Satiety has a lot to do with fat in the duodenum - big reason why low-fat diets are a struggle.)

and re appetite control-shop bought bread!

don't get me started!

ffs!

ah there is a caution in there re the self regulation. We make ALL our own food, pretty much, and increasingly grow some too.

the kids can eat as many chocolate muffins as they want

they just have to help make them first

and we don't always have time to make them. or we might not have the ingrediants.

so I am not limiting them, but circumstances are, if that makes sense. I do think there is a difference though possibly there isn't. There is no morality attatched to the food, just sometimes, due to circumstance, it is avalible and sometimes not.

god I am feckin smug, making my own bread and all. I am sorry. I am a crap mummy generally.

I think with unfaffed-with food, you will have more success with letting them self-regulate (you mean things like home made cakes etc?)

it was junk food I was on about

but I mean refined sugar seems to be fairly addictive, even if it does make us feel odd after eating it

ENTP who were you before you got Myers Briggsed?

"Sugar works a lot like salt - the more you have, the more you want"

explain further please

bear in mind that my arguement is partly that kids who can self regulate food consumption (limited to actual food here, see below) won't enter that spiral of increasing sugar consumption anyway

Well I am sure I have a lot more to learn on this, but it seems to me that very processed or bonkersly artificial foods don't always act in the body in a straightforward way, so our natural controls get skewed for one reason or another.

do you count sugar as artificially processed? more so than, say, wheat, soy milk, honey, apple juice etc?

(am genuinely asking. I am SO not meant to be here, i am meant to be squeezing info on fatty acids into 100 word answers)

I think if you're working with actual food, the sugar thing (like salt) doesn't become an actual problem, because you don't get sugar or salt in sufficient quantities.

But basically, if your tastebuds are used to, say, storebought cakes (white flour, lots of refined sugar etc etc), then you will see them as sweet and nice, and homemade cakes (brown flour, sweetened with molasses or dried fruit) as not tasty. If you are used to homemade cakes, storebought will taste gross. But it's easier to go from homemade to storebought, than vice versa.

There's also the whole sugar-crash thing, which encourages sugar consumption as well.

It's the same with salt - people who salt their food, always need more salt than people who don't. And it's not because they genuinely need more salt, it's because their tastebuds are trained to expect that much salt in everything.

A bit. Sometimes. Not more than all of those, no.

I have a wishy washy sliding scale. I thought they gave it to you along with your child's yellow book. Didn't you get one?

I do count sugar as fairly artificially processed. I can juice apples at home. Honey is just taken from combs isn't it? (It is pretty sweet, though, granted.) White flour is fairly processed (as is white rice etc etc).

But my concerns with sugar are more down to the fact I'll be diabetic, eventually. And I'd like to make that happen as late as possible.

ok but am confused

why does it then matter how processed they are? purely for addictiveness sake?

I think I am correct in saying that in fructose particular is bad news, because it is soooo sweet. And (looks over shoulder for MB) I don't think there is much chemical difference between honey and sugar except that honey has been spat out by a bee.

is it the control thing? because you need to process it yourself, you are limited by how much you can make anyway? so circumstantial not moral control?

I think you are possibly right fillyjonk, that because you don't like TV, it isn't ordinarily on in the house. Therefore the kids don't really get into the habit of watching it, and therefore aren't really bothered. That is what I would say is going on in our house. THe kids show a lot more interest in the PC than the TV

I think for me this is one of those issues that what I feel deep down and what I say in public are very different, because some of the mothers I am close to use the TV a lot with their children, and I don't want them to think I am lecturing or judging them.

On baby einstein - please don't for one minute think that i wanted to coach or train my baby into being an einstein. It actually was the only thing she would watch and I used it to keep her occupied for half an hour once a week to get some cleaning done.

Honey is just REVOLTING

erm, I don't crave apple juice

erm, because I don't like it

Apple juice isn't that much less sweet than pure sugar, nor is honey, you're right. I don't tend to distinguish between these things that much, tbh. (And we don't have juice in the house, generally. I quite like a particular sort in Canada, and drink a bit there, but none here.)

I am talking about the processed quality purely because, usually, processing removes the useful fibre and often a lot of the nutrients, doesn't it? So you are not getting the usual controls on your eating (fullness), nor are you getting the same advantages from what you are eating (3 apples is better than a glass of apple juice, right?)

It isn't a moral or control thing, for me, just a health thing. I am not always consistent, either - like most people I muddle along with a mixture of what I believe to be best and what is convenient or even possible.

I'm reading this at the moment and it gives properly researched scientific reasons why you are absolutely spot on NOT to allow your baby to watch any TV ever.

It's scarey reading but very well written and I'd recommend it to anyone. I haven't completely stopped my two year old watching TV but I've got it down to about two hours a week for emergencies only.

I like that book Spider.

what are the reasons spidey?

(or franny)

To OP - no, of course not.

There are so many filly. He talks about the speed of editting and how it has speeded up during the years. More and more channels mean they have to pull out all the stops to get you watching.

BUT they never focus on anything for long and brain soon learns that concentration is the enemy, because if it tries to concentrate on what it's taking in, the image changes fast and concentration attempts are foiled fyswim. Telly makes young brains behave like passive consummers drinking in the high speed crap which they're being fed.

That's just a snippet. Only he says it much, much, much better.

It really makes for great reading.