Another TV questions... what is the harm for infants (under 6 months) to watch it?

[Anonymous]

Does it harm their eye sight? I know when they get older it can be a distraction, but what about when they are so young? If we have it on, my DD who is 4 months loves to stare at the colors.

[Anonymous]

With her brain still developing, it's best for your daughter to be looking at and learning about other things in the world around her ("real" things, if you will). It's best to keep the TV off during her waking hours.

[Anonymous]

Why would a 6month old be watching TV anyways?

If you are a SAHM, you should be taking her out, interacting, and exposing her to new senses and experiences. THis is a SAHP's full time job.

If you are working, the daycare is not a good one if they are letting babies watch TV and you should be taking issue with them.

[Anonymous]

sorry PP here...4months, even worse.

[Anonymous]

Please calm down, 12:39. The OP was asking an innocent question, trying to learn more about something, and obviously didn't know any better, no need to be nasty.

[Anonymous]

I understand the concept that it is better to take a baby out and experience real world things, but none of the previous posters have answered the question: What is actually wrong with a baby watching television?

Does anyone have any real studies or hard data to point to on this one?

[Anonymous]

There have actually been a number of studies. The one I read most recently was the Child Health Institute linking TV viewing in infancy to ADHD but there are other side effects, including possibility of speech delay, obesity, etc. All easily googled, I'd imagine.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I sometimes murse my 4 month old and have Thomas the Tank on for my 2 year old. I don't do it every time, but it's one way to keep the older one engaged in something while I have to sit still for 10-15 min.

I don't do it every day, but especially when I'm alone with both of them, it helps. I'm not going to feel bad about it.

As my dad always says to me, "You watched tons of tv as a kid and you turned out fine." love you dad!

[Anonymous]

To the OP, please read up on this from someplace other than a mommie forum. The american academy of pediatrics strongly advises AGAINST babies under the age of 2 watching television. it doesn't matter what the content is. babies are not absorbing CONTENT, not even baby einstein!!! what they are seeing is a bunch of flashing lights. the tv viewing is thought to be a cause of ADHD, as well as a very bad habit, esp. when used as a babysitter. for children over the age of 2, it's not that bad. but you still shouldn't park your rugrat in front of the tv all day, or think he/she is LEARNING from it.

for nursing moms who need to distract a toddler, do what ya gotta do!

signed,
someone who was raised by Ma & Pa Ingalls but is doing better by her kid

[Anonymous]

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against children under 2 watching t.v. mainly because it takes away from time that could be better spent interacting with people, which is how babies really learn.

Check out what PBS has to say on the subject. Although it's a televison network, it seems to have pretty unbiased information about infants t.v. viewing.

http://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/article-faq.html

Highlights from this website:
Has there been much research done on the effects of TV on infants and toddlers?
Surprisingly little.

Over the last three decades many studies have focused on television and children, with a fair amount of emphasis on preschool-aged children. To date, infants and toddlers have received limited attention. This is starting to change given the big boom in programs and products directed at the very young - videos for infants, for example, have exploded in recent years-but a great deal more research is needed.

A review of current research has been published by the London-based National Literacy Trust and by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Although several studies suggest age-appropriate programs can help preschoolers learn language, there have been far fewer studies focused on toddlers. There is some evidence that 18-month-olds will respond to the visuals of programs with words, especially if the content is of high quality. But other studies suggest children under the age of 22 months learn words less effectively from TV than from interactions with people.

Does having a TV on in the background - either in another room or in the same room where a child is playing - matter?
Yes, background TV can be a disruptive influence.

According to a recent study conducted by a group of scholars and published in American Behavioral Scientist, the television is on approximately six hours a day on average in American homes. Yet little is known about the impact of growing up in the near constant presence of television. They studied the prevalence and developmental impact of "heavy-television" households on very young children from birth to age 6 drawn from a nationally representative sample. Thirty-five percent of the children lived in a home where the television was on "always" or "most of the time," even if no one was watching. Regardless of their age, children from heavy-television households watched more television and read less than other children. Furthermore, children exposed to constant television were less likely to be able to read than other children. Also, other research has shown that one-, two-, and three-year-olds' play and attention spans are shorter in length in the presence of background television, and parent-child interactions are also less frequent in the presence of background television.

[Anonymous]

I, too, have heard that too much TV too early can delay language development. FWIW, I have a theory on this, based on my observations of my 21 month old and other kids. I see him watching our mouths as we talk to him, trying to figure out how to say the words we are saying. I suspect that the link between TV watching and delayed language has something to do with not being able to see how the talker is forming the words (perhaps because young kids' vision isn't good enough to see the screen from a reasonable distance or because the shows use animation or puppets, etc), not to mention the fact that if they are watching a lot of TV there's less talking going on in the house. But I'm a lawyer, not a pediatrician, psychologist, or anything else, so who knows. And yes, we have the TV on when he's awake (he usually ignores it) and have let him watch videos in the car on long trips.

Can anyone explain why videos are different than TV? I burst out laughing when my MIL said that our nephew (6 months at the time) is "not allowed to watch TV. Those Baby Einstein videos are GREAT!" What's the difference?

[Anonymous]

I agree with PPs -- get your information somewhere else. Primarily because, in fact, no studies have found a causitive link between TV and ADHD, autism, etc. Some have found correlations, that's all.

Worth noting, also, that the study that came out in the last year or two about language development and TV viewing among infants found that only Baby Einstein -- not other children's programming or adult programming -- correlated with poorer language development. The theory was that Baby Einstein doesn't include normal conversation/language and that people who use Baby Einstein are more likely to have their infants watch more of it since they've been told it's educational. So, babies who watch some "regular" TV are probably watching less of it and are actually hearing language, which facilitates language development.

Finally, the AAP recommendation, in my opinion, is about hte lowest common denominator -- there are people out there who would plop their infants in front of hte TV all day if no one told them it was a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

to the lawyer: you are probably right. my son intently watches our mouths as we talk and puts his finger in my mouth sometimes, too. he's really trying to learn where words come from, and is working on his own language skills. tv must be somewhat confusing, which is why he's not watching it until he's 2 (if then!) and videos are the same, really.

[Anonymous]

Here is an interesting study that looked at the behavior of children (1-3) playing with television in the background. Although not specifically studying infants, it gives some idea of how TV can affect their play.

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20080715/does-background-tv-make-kids-lose-focus

[Anonymous]

Is it really bad to nurse while you watch tv? My one month old doesn't see or watch the screen but she can hear the sounds. I still talk to her while I do it.