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.

Cocomelon is dreadful but In the Night Garden was popular with everyone, especially me! We all used to clap when the stars turned into flowers. Truth to tell, I still occasionally watch an episode and feel nostalgic for the days when the children were small and watched too. (They're still only 6 and 9!) I'm a real sad case and enjoy watching Iggle Piggle's wee boat getting smaller and smaller at the end.

I adore The Night Garden. I always feel moved when Iggle Piggle floats away on his boat. It brings back lovely nostalgic memories of my now 19 year old ds watching it before bed.

Nightgarden is better. Great for the imagination and soothing music.

Bbq1 do you remember the music? I think it's the way the orchestra starts at the moment when iggle Piggle snuggles down, and the way the camera surges up to the sky, and the stars start turning into flowers. It's really remarkable for children's TV.

Same here! My DS now 20 watched it after his bath, I loved how all the night nights were said to all the characters. My DS had a plush toy Iggle Piggle which he would have with him and up we went for toothbrush, story and bed straight after. The soothing music was a perfect wind down, have very fond memories of it.

In the night garden makes no sense but is quite calming for DS, he laughs and dances when the Tombliboos come on and we watch them brush their teeth sometimes to help him relax when he’s getting his done!

Just asked my 17 year old DS if he remembers ITNG and he replied "Makka Pakka, Aka Waka, Micka Makka Moo" so I guess it made an impact.

No way I ever let my kids watch Cocomelon. Brightly coloured meaningless nonsense. They never really liked In the Night Garden, but at least you know with CBeebies that it’s been properly designed to help their linguistic development.

Ah this thread is making me nostalgic!

DC are late teens now. Don’t know cocomelon, but very fond memories of ITNG. I remember the absolute joy of my very small children when there was a “dance” at the end, versus the slightly crestfallen reaction when the music started but a story came instead 😀

In the night garden! Another show that is actually developed for your childs development is Treehouse on Milkshake (My 5). Helps with speech and motor skills. Cocomelon does nothing apart from hold the attention of toddlers and reduce their attention span! Shows like In the Night Garden and Treehouse go at toddler speed and are developed in the same way shows from the 90s were. With educational and developmental benefits at the heart.

I was thrilled when the Pinky Ponk flew over us at the stage show…

I absolutely love ITNG. Wonderful memories of watching it with my now 19 year old son. All cozy in his pj's ready for bed. I get quite emotional if i hear the theme tune. Absolutely loved the wackiness of it!

In the night garden is really weird but I quite liked it. It was quite gentle. I liked guessing if it was the pinky pink or the only nonk at the start.

Cocomelon, my husband hated. The kids did like it but it was a bit frenetic for them in my opinion. We used to allow it but only on small doses.

As someone mentioned above, Moon and Me was fab. My little girl used to call Collywobble "Kerbobbly' which was just the cutest 🥰

I'm so delighted that such a lot of people have responded to my initial question!
I agree that In the Night Garden is an extraordinary and unique series: the twins I studied loved it. Cocomelon appeared later. I agree with all the "hates" you've given it, but I was intrigued to analyse one episode shot by shot (Old MacDonald's Farm) and to find how incredibly short all the shots are. And I hate those big heads and enormous eyes - though that is probably quite intriguing for babies at first. It soon gets very "samey".

Aww I miss cocomelon now my kids are too old for it. In the night garden was okay. I preferred cocomelon

I still sometimes put the ITNG music on for me to fall asleep too. 😂

Moon and me , the night garden and Bluey

we have Bluey dresses and teddies.

Both awful. If you're going to do kids tv for education watch ms Rachel, although they're high stimulation. If you want low stimulation the Julia Donaldson books on prime are amazing for wind down. Other than that my toddler watches a Disney movie or nothing. We don't do series or YouTube.

@NanaGary Have you had a look at Little Baby Bum which developed into Lellobee? It's got older and newer episodes online that show a detailed evolution of style and voicing from one of the early "wheels on the bus" with a very unpolished voice actress through to the more recent episodes with a totally different style and sound. It also has a lot more originality in some of the songs than Cocomelon and variance in the tunes for the original songs (a lot of the Cocomelon songs are to the same few tunes).

When on Grandparent childminding duty, another shout for Miss Rachel.
If the littlies are on screen watching time, they may as well learn something whilst being mesmerised. The only slightly annoying aspect for UK viewers is having to relearn that Z is not pronounced Zee.
One parent hates The Night Garden, so that is on the banned list.
Bluey is on the good list.

We didn't introduce tv to DD until she was 18 months and then have mainly stuck to cbeebies. When she did have cocomelon on she because a glazed zombie so I banned it!

She loves animation like In the Night Garden, Moon and Me etc. Prefers it to cartoons. We limit screen to a bit first thing and then a bit more at weekends/on holiday.

We don't allow her a tablet or use of a phone to watch stuff. She's got her whole.life to be addicted to phones without us starting her off!

Fast Paced TV, such as cocomelon, is proven to have a negative impact on children’s executive functioning and attention spans.
Screen time is also not recommended for children.

i am by no means anti-TV, sometimes we all need a break and it can be fun. However, when mine was a baby he never got to watch TV as such, although when I was lonely or breastfeeding I’d trim something on for myself.
I also see a big difference in my 6- year old if he watches TV or not.

if you’re writing a pro-TV book please do so with care and proper research into the subject.

attached are two interesting research papers on TV.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9923845/

https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-024-01738-1

Blisterinthe: thanks for your advice and links to the papers. They are both typical of research papers by academics who know little about TV or how to analyse it. I read a huge number of research papers on children and TV in my six-year doctoral research on TV-watching behaviour in children aged between 13 months and 3 years (almost none of the academic research on children and Tv involves extended observation of children, and most of it is done in the US - where there's much less public service TV for kids). My book is not a "pro-TV" book though my research did take a serious and informed interest in, and analysis of, a range of TV programmes for children. My argument is that we need a better understanding of what is actually going on when children in the 0-3 age range watch TV: learning how to understand the medium is certainly part of it. My previous book, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies (Palgrave 2022) is only available at a ridiculous price but I'd be happy to send you a PDF for free if you send me your email address.
Best wishes and thank you for your interest - Cary (Honorary Research Fellow, Institute of Education, University College London )

Absolutely love both for different reasons. ITNG for calming and chilling out. CM for singing and learning day to day stuff. All 3 of mine have loved both and still do. 5, 3 and 1

Hi GingerLiberalFeminist! I'm interested in your "glazed zombie" comment - might it be possible though, that she was actually just concentrating very hard? I recently did a shot-by-shot analysis of a Cocomelon episode (Old MacDonald' Farm) and was intrigued to find that most of the shots only last a few seconds - I guess this is what is meant when people say it's "very fast". If the subject-matter were more interesting and we got fewer of the enormous faces and huge eyes, it could be quite good, but as it is, yes I hate it too! BTW In the Night Garden is not animation (except in a few bits eg Pontipines): it's actors in body suits, filmed in a real woodland environment (so probably cost thousands more than Cocomelon).