What is the right month to start watching Baby Einstein? Can my baby watch too much Baby Einstein?
Like so many aspects to child development, the appropriate answer to this question is: IT DEPENDS! I know, I can feel your frustration on this one! I can tell you when my son started really watching Baby Einstein and that was 3 and ½ months. I tried to get him to watch it at 2 months an all he did was cry in his bouncy chair. At 3 and ½ months he was truly watching. My sister-in-law has a two month old who loves Baby Einstein NOW and even cries when the DVD ends, so that shows you that there is no scientific answer to this question!
The best advice I can give you is to try putting on Baby Einstein for your infant when you think he or she might be ready. Make it extra fun for them by sitting with them, holding them in your lap and talking about the things you see on the screen with them. Mommy warning for this one: you WILL get sucked in to the random images of innate objects set to classical music, it is truly hypnotic! As I sat with my DF’s new nephew watching Baby Mozart I finally remembered where those first 7 months of Kysen’s infanthood slipped away to: Baby Einstein comma land! Sometimes it was the only thing I could do to give myself some time to get myself dressed or grab something to eat!
Now here’s an ethical question: “Is too much Baby Einstein bad for your baby?”
Answer: YES, too much TV of any kind is bad for a child or human of any age. Come on guys! We’ve had this invention around for a while now and all the brainwave tests have been sent in and analyzed: watching TV is a passive activity and we want our brains to be ACTIVE. Educators and entertainers are taking note of this and you can see a shift in children’s programming happening. Like Dora and Diego, they go out of their way to ask your kids questions and then politely wait for your kid to answer them back. This is all in an effort to get kids actively involved in watching TV and maybe it helps, I’m not sure.
But for a baby things are a little bit different, your baby can gain something from watching the spinning of a pinwheel or the “blah”ing of an endearing green dragon on Baby Einstein. Is this cognitive gain as important as them grabbing a pinwheel in real life and sticking it in their mouth? No. Touching and feeling the world around them will help babies develop the most and as Freud reminds us this is our oral fixation phase of life, your baby learns through placing things in their mouth. So, its not good for your baby to watch too much Baby Einstein, their time could be better spent touching different textures of toys or rubbing the surface of your skin. But Bay Einstein has its place in an infant and baby’s life.
Sure, there were days where I had Kysen watch WAY too much Baby Einstein, justifying to myself that at least it had classical music and apparently that creates special brain pathways, so he was getting something good from it. But let’s face it, there are better things our babies can be doing than watching Baby Einstein!
What do you think about these important questions? What is your Baby Einstein watching limit?
