Good vs bad tv shows?

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Hi all! I have a 4 month old. So far I haven't been putting him to watch the tv and ill keep it that way as long as I can. However I'd love your views on which shows are good; educational vs which ones to avoid. I've seen shows like peppa or bing ideally shouldn't be encouraged in this forum. Where can I find out more on what is good tv for kids to watch vs what isn't? Which shows do you let or not let your little ones watch? Thank you.

I think it’s just about moderation and personal choice to be honest.

My DD is six and I’ve never let her watch tv with adverts, so it was cbeebies only when she was little. Also a good habit to get into is that she very rarely just watches tv, it’s always a specific programme downloaded or an agreed number of episodes of something.

Don’t get me wrong TV is great and definitely has its place but in my house it’s regulated otherwise DD would happily sit there all day every day.

In terms of specific shows, my DD did not know Pepa existed until she went to preschool and the only issue with Bing is that it will make you want to stab your own eyes out. I find cbeebies generally good quality, Bing excepted!

As has been said moderation and then how your child reacts - I stopped my DD watching bing as she started moaning like he does but she’s been fine with peppa and some of the shows have been helpful in preparing her for life events like going to the dentist.

Bing is highly irritating!! But I don't have a problem with Peppa because I think it gives nice opportunities to explore different situations with dc if you are watching alongside them, eg 'how do you think that made George feel when Peppa said that?' etc.

I found Disney junior quite educational too as well as ceebebies, but ceebebies has quite A big age bracket so Disney junior was often more age appropriate later in the day when ceebebies was aimed at reception aged children.

Don’t overthink it. Not everything has to be educational and worthy.

During begining lockdown my dd at the time was 18 months and we had no choice but to watch a lot of tv, she loved Mr tumble, gigglebiz, and she liked blippi on amazon prime, i found them all to be quite educational, alot of teaching on the shows.

I honestly credit the shows to her developing speech, with her dad at work all the time, there was only so much conversing i could do with her so she got a lot of information from them that she wouldn’t get from normal everyday conversations.

Despite what others would think she actually isnt addicted to tv either, she’ll watch a bit in the morning after breakfast but then she is happy to go off and play, and even if i leave the tv on cbeebies or a kids show she doesn’t notice.

Maybe i am a lucky parent in that sense but i don’t believe in limiting stuff as it only makes them want it more imo, but again that’s just been my experience, so maybe others have had to limit exposure.

I do find Bing annoying but I actually think it’s a good program, my daughter recently informed me she was ‘disappointed’ which I’m sure came from Bing. She is excited about her next lot of vaccinations (only a year to wait…) as Bing shows they aren’t a big deal. I actually think she has learned things from it. He is v annoying though…

Anything on CBeebies is fine by me Tbf.

Everyone hates Bing because he's an annoying twat but I have no problem with DS watching it; some (most) of the episodes are about dealing with a problem - it might be being scared of something or breaking something or making a mistake - and how to deal with it. They have pretty good messages, they just grate as an adult. Honestly though, anything that keeps DS engaged and entertained is fine. It can be the most worthless bit of TV ever but if DS wants to talk about it, for example, it's more than served its purpose.

Personally it's more about what I can stand having on - Peppa and Bing are irritating little shits and I don't want my child to start copying them. I tend to just leave Cbeebies on as it's all fairly innocuous and reasonably educational (Bing excepted, but it rarely seems to be on when we're home).

I avoid things with adverts like a pp - he does watch a bit of YouTube but only with me so I can skip them.

When mine was maybe around 9-10 months I started leaving him in his playpen with In the Night Garden on while I made dinner - it stopped him getting cross because I'd left him alone (kitchen not big or safe enough for him to crawl around while I was cooking). That was basically it until lockdown hit when he was 13 months, and from then on we just had Cbeebies on most of the day to keep him entertained while we worked. I feel like the Cbeebies House presenters are my mates :D

Bluey on CBeebies is really good

Cbeebies is great. Lots of educational fun stuff on there. We’ve also watched a lot of David Attenborough as DS is animal obsessed. I actually started having that on in the background all the time when DS was a new born and BF because I was too tired to function and it was just relaxing to listen to and watch without really paying attention. But who doesn’t love a good Disney movie? As other’s have said, don’t overthink it. DS is now three and by then they will tell you what they to watch anyway. We’ve watched SharkDog’s Halloween episode on Netflix three times today… nothing else will do at the moment.

I'd say at this stage watch what you enjoy too. I LOVE bluey.

You'll probably find it doesn't hold their attention much anyway so young (although can only speak for my kid!). She's 10m and doesn't watch more than 20mins then she's over it.

I watch a bit of Bluey with DD, she’s only really interested in dancing to the intro song and then goes back to whatever she’s doing but I actually quite like it. Otherwise we have on what I want to watch (although nothing gory/violent obviously, just things like friends!)

Whatever you don't mind being on tbh, they dip in and out of interest for shows. Ours would switch from watching to playing all the time, I often found myself watching kids TV with no child in sight or them sleeping lol.

Here we watch Octonauts, the magic light Julia Donaldson productions on BBC (Zog, Gruffalo etc) and then occasionally Sarah and Duck for chill out time.

My 2 year old DD is obsessed with Little Baby Bum on Netflix, she wont watch anything else its basically nursery rhymes and songs. She doesnt sit glued to it (she doesnt sit still for 5 minutes) but its often on in the background. Her counting, colours, alphabet etc are fantastic for her age and i honestly think a lot of this comes from watching LBB

Thanks all! Some good ideas and perspectives on this. I agree it can really help with language! And the bbc is usually good quality so we will go for that.

We were soooooo careful until lockdown 1 when DP went back to work half way through, usual grandparent childcare still wasn’t allowed and I was teaching from home. Then I caved and opened the floodgates. She was obsessed for about six months (was 15 months when lockdown hit), and since then she can seriously take or leave tv. Even at almost 3 and with a Disney+ subscription while I’m on mat leave, she’ll still only watch ten minutes or so before going off to find me/play. She will sit longer with her dad if they watch a few Paw Patrols together but that’s it.

She’s the same with her tablet, which we got for her grandparents’ house when she stopped napping so they could still have half an hour break in the middle of the day - can take it or leave it now and much prefers playing with actual toys/crafts, especially with a friend.

I’m not advocating an overload them with screens approach, but it seems to have put DD1 off for life!

If you check out 'jerricasannes' on Instagram she rates TV shows and explains how they are good/bad. Mostly American shows but they can be found on YouTube.

We've got DS3, generally cbeebies is good, but I really don't like bing. Most of it is ok, but some us awful!!

Bluey is fab, but probably a bit young for that! Yakka dee is good for language, as is kit and pup weve found

My 11 month old watches Sesame street songs on kids Youtube and loves it. They're all about helping, kindness, being it in the world and nursery thymes. We watch a few songs when I'm cooking and it's helped her dance, stomp her feet, do actions to nursery rhymes and say 'uh oh' and she did the Counts 'mwah-ha-ha' at Halloween (which we didn't teach her!). She hits her tambourine when John Legend comes on, no idea why.

I like Pocoyo, it is sweet.

I like the older ones you can get on YouTube - things like Old Bear Stories and Noggin the Nog. I also like Octonauts and it's definitely educational. Hey Duggee is sweet too.

Loathe Peppa but worry she will ultimately find her way in somehow...

My 5 month old loves In the Night Garden!

Bing isn’t bad got children, it’s just intensely irritating for adults. As a general rule ceebies is OK, although I’m not a fan of cocomelon and other stuff.

At 4 months old I wouldn’t be putting on children TV shows. If you need ten minutes put then in front of the news or a talk panel show for the close up faces.

If you reallyyyy want to know go to an Instagram account called JerricaSannes