Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Learning too much from TV?

I'm worried I'm allowing too much TV.

DD is almost 13 months now and in the past month she's learned most of the signs on the first 3 volumes of Signing Time. She's mostly stopped talking, though. She had said around 12 words and now she only says hi, hat (hah), byebye, apple (ap). She also "reads" her books alone now and says "Ah!" and will point and make the sign for any picture she knows the sign for. I feel like I should keep buying these DVDs... but I kind of feel bugged about it.

I was one of the moms who said no TV for my baby. I did all this research and decided it wasn't good. But she sits there and watches it and comes back knowing signs... We use the signs, too, but she uses some we've barely worked on (if at all.)

She learns from books, too, but she'll never sit still with me for 30 minutes... but she will pay attention to the TV and the songs and everything. She also gets so excited when we turn the TV on and starts going Ah? AH! AH? and doing this shrug thing, palms up, like "Where is it?!"

Is this detrimental? Should I just stick to teaching her one on one with books and such? Do you have any regrets or advice for how you handled TV in the early years?

Thanks.