Cocomelon or In the Night Garden?

[NanaGary]

I'm writing a book for parents about babies' and toddlers' TV-watching which is NOT anti-TV. I would love to hear from parents or grandparents about babies and/or toddlers who have watched Cocomelon and/or In the Night Garden and what their reactions were. I'd also like to hear YOUR opinions about which of these two series you think is better.

They’re both irritating dross but as other posters have said, Cocomelon is insidious AI crap - no one really knows who owns it or produces it - whereas ITNG is an actual television programme made by real people, featuring real people in costumes, produced for children. It’s irritating but not actually harmful.

Cocomelon, if you can stand to watch it that long, changes perspective or cuts on average every 3-5 seconds. This is what wrecks children’s attention spans.

Cocomelon has been banned in our house, we never let our children watch it. It's highly addictive.

As mentioned up thread Bluey for the win.thats another level of kids TV,really good.

Thank you all for so many really interesting comments - and I do mean all of you, including those who hate one or both programmes! I agree that Cocomelon is pretty relentless and I’m concerned that we’re going to see more and more of the very standardised look (big eyes etc) and the endless emphasis on being nice to each other and less on stories and visual styles that stimulate the imagination. ITNG did if course have a really big budget (as well as a very talented writer, Andrew Davenport, and that won’t happen often in a a risk-averse industry. I’d love to hear more from those of you who hate one or both, and why. And about “learning” one thing that’s usually left out of discussion about what little kids learn from tv is that they learn how to make sense of moving images and sounds, and how they work to tell stories and communicate emotions. It’s not true that films/videos are immediately understandable if you’ve never seen them before.

Same here - I have very fond memories of those times.

And the bedtime song. I can still sing it and we haven't seen Bedtime hour in nearly 10 years when we moved abroad.

I can recall my 9mo responding well to the little bell rings and other sounds etc In the Night Garden.

As a grown up I felt it was too long EVERY SINGLE NIGHT but it's an extremely cleverly made show, perfect for its target audience. And the music is astounding.

Yes this. ITNG was perfect for winding down and it was part of our bedtime routine. Never seen Cocomelon as my kids were too old by then but it sounds horrendous.

I've never watched cocomelon (my kids are too old for that now)

I found In the nightgarden a bit nightmarish. My eldest really didn't like the Haahoos lurking at the back, although he did very much like the gentle Makka Pakka and his stone stacking.

The Tombliboos obsession with washing their trousers was odd.

The entire thing had a massive issue with scale and relative sizes.

And the whole 'coloured globes in the woods must always be in the same 2 colour order in the scene' struck me as something intentional but which never had the attention drawn to it, which just increased my uneasiness with it.

Peppa pig is awful! She’s a rude brat😂 I wouldn’t want my children watching something like that and thinking that behaviour is ok…

I have seen people saying that watching more old fashioned shows on YouTube results in calmer children as they are less fast paced. Line Thomas the tank engine and Postman Pat.

Yes I would agress with this. You have to concentrate to follow the story and everything is a much slower pace.

Upsy daisy is a little hussy 😂😂

There are only like 50 episodes of INTNG but the repetitive nature is good for little ones. Cocomelon is addictive and the American accents aren’t great at helping littles ones develop speech- but some songs are catchy
Team macca pacca

Scale in ITNG is one of the thinhs that's interested me. I think it relates to toddlers' experiences (a) of most people being much bigger than them and (b) their enjoyment of playing with scale with their toys eg lying down next to their farmyard animal toys or their toy train track and looking at it from floor level. I think it's an important part of how they learn to be in the world and use their imagination. ITNG sort of plays with it too - the Ninky Nonk is a toy when its outside the hedge but when you go in it's bigger than you are.

In the Night Garden... however I feel like I'm on drugs watching it.
The music is calming and despite its weirdness its settling.

Cocomelon is too bright, stimulating and just bloody irritating

Cbeebies shows you can watch with your child.

Cocomelon is purely for putting on a phone/tablet and handing to your child so you can ignore them.

Can you prove that it wrecks children's attention spans? What I've noticed about Cocomelon stories - e.g from watching the Old MacDonald Had A Farm one - is that, yes they do have a standard 2-3 second shot length, BUT to understand the shot changes (eg point--of-view shots, jump cuts etc) someone new to film-watching has to maybe watch that a few times to work out what's going on ("why was it that person and now it's someone else?") so they are learning the "language" of moving images which is quite not as easy as we like to think. It comes naturally to all of us because we've seen so much of it. But it's an important language, isn't it?

They are both awful. The only thing we watch with our 2 year old is bluey. It's in a different league to any of toddler shows. I think peppa pig is so blatantly sexist it annoys me

Personally there are many other programmes I prefer my dc to watch but
in the night garden- the beginning is lovely with the child in bed and the song/iggle piggles boat.
I believe I heard it was developed by speech therapists. It feels much calmer than cocomelon, doesn’t stir dc into a hyper frenzy.

cocomelon- personally hate the look of it, find it’s too ‘American’ and annoying. Deliberately holds young children’s attention with fast cuts, bright colours etc to make it addictive and is too over stimulating.

Hi Springbabydays - are you a musical expert? I think the eight opening notes of the ITNG title sequence (before the singing starts) are C-G-B, A-C-B and maybe that the position of each of the stars that lights up as the notes sound is where they would be on a music stave. Do you agree? Or can any other music experts on here check that out?

Sadly not, it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case though, it would be easy enough to incorporate I should think.

Whether it really does that or not, it's a nice way of hinting to babies and toddlers that "high" and "low" (even if they don't have those words yet) are a thing in music. And we do instinctively stretch up when we want to scream or sign a high note, and shrink down a bit if we want to growl or sing a low note...don't we? They get three types of music in that opening sequence, too: single notes, song and orchestra.

I LOVE In The Night Garden.
My 3 all loved/love it. My youngest is 1 and she adores it. Will literally scream with joy when we put it on. It also calms her down when she's upset if you sing any of the songs from it to her.
I just think it's so relaxing and simple. Lovely and calm, giving a sense of timelessness and safety. Yet full of things which young children find fascinating.
I also enjoy that Maka Paka washes faces because my youngest hates having her face washed but will smile if you say "maka paka washes faces!" Whilst doing it.

Oh and regards cocomelon. I don't let my youngest watch it as I think it's too much. It's quite in your face.
I know of it because my middle daughter is 6 and thinks it's funny so puts it on sometimes. She didn't watch it as a toddler though. It reminds me of youtube nonsense to be honest.

I LOVE In the Night Garden. It's absolutely wonderful and my daughter adored it when she was a toddler. The characters, music and stories are so so lovely 🥰 Maka Paka