Reply to How much TV exposure for infants?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have the TV on most of the time when I'm home. Even if I'm not watching it, I like the background noise. It's a bad habit I've had my whole life. That didn't really change when 14 mo DD came along, despite my best intentions. We don't encourage her to watch or put on shows for her, but she is "exposed" almost every day. She mostly ignores it, but occasionally pays attention. I was surprised recently when I had "America's Funniest Animals" on and she started laughing at a video of a cat chasing a ball around in a circle; I hadn't realized she was capable of actually "watching" TV. [/quote]

OMG, thank you for this post. I was scrolling through thinking, "Am I the only person out there who apparently is not good enough to break themselves of all TV habits and turn off the TV for the sake of their child?" Suffice it to say that I'm the same as you. Lots of exposure going on in our house too because to be honest, we never changed our habits. This might make me a horrible mother, but it's true.

With our first, he never showed any interest in the TV (this was the kid who was a nightmare on a plane when he got mobile and at no point did the whole DVD player thing work...he could care less), nor did we ever put him in front of any kids' shows until Sesame Street when he was maybe 2.5 yrs because I was home with him all day and needed to add something else to the mix. Now he's four and is definitely more in tune with the television than he used to be. He loves anything that is sports related and if it's on, we generally let him watch it. But besides Sesame Street and an episode of Thomas here and there, we never put on children's programming for him. Nor does he ask for it. He owns one movie - Cars - which has been watched multiple times, I will say (maybe once a month). At times, when I do look over and see that he has quit playing with his toys and is staring at whatever is on TV (which half the time is like HGTV), I will turn it off and he goes back to playing with his toys again. Of course now he has a baby sister and she definitely is showing a lot more interest in the TV screen from the start, so I try to make myself turn it off more or turn her away from it - but I'm still far from perfect.

Kudos to all you moms who never turn on the TV (and I'm being sarcastic...I mean that)! [/quote]

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