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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.

It's hard to know what's optimal, especially as I'm only on my second little one now (DS2) and don't know how much TV has impacted DS6 or in what ways. DS2 has an expressive language delay, so I let him watch something called Baby Babble for a while. He's also watched a fair amount of PBS shows, and some movies.

I've read plenty of concerned posts elsewhere about possible negative effects of signing, usually about a baby speaking later because of comfort with the signs. We've never used signing, although DS2's speech therapist began doing some signing with him, later abandoning it since he began picking up with verbalization. My hazy memory of prior reading on signing, though, is that you shouldn't be concerned if your child becomes comfortable signing, because there's no real ill effect from it. It's still expressive language use, and your daughter can pick up vocabulary without any hindrance. If you want to encourage verbalization, I wouldn't refuse to communicate by signing, but just do it gently. It will probably sort itself out.

I definitely understand the desire to avoid too much stimulation. The worry I've always had is that my kids will become less able to concentrate on their own, without a constant barrage of signals to return to task. It's the reason I never buy any electronic early development toys that reward a button press with sounds and flashing lights, etc.; if received as a gift, I stick them in the basement and donate them later.

That said, we've probably let both children watch more TV than many parents (ETA: at least those who give a darn about their children's education), although a large amount of it is educational. I've bought the kids stuff like "Planet Earth", "WW II in HD" and "The Universe" complete set on Blu Ray, since I figure that when they feel like watching something, it's better for them than "The Cat in the Hat" or a pure entertainment TV show, or rewatching "Iron Man" for the umpteenth time. DS2 has watched some movies, mostly ones like "Fantastic Planet", "The Bear", "Dumbo", Miyazaki movies, etc. which I hope stimulate interest in certain areas for him. We've cut back a lot on TV watching in other areas-- I often insist that my wife turn off the TV when it's functioning just as background noise for her.

For some reason both children seem to have a longer-than-normal attention span, but that might be a quirk of their personalities and I'd hesitate to draw any conclusions re: their watching habits. It could well be that they'd have better focus if we hadn't taken the edge off, so to speak.

She honestly barely spoke before this. She babbles but never spoke consistently. By 11 months she'd hit all the 18 month milestones (the doctor said) except... I'm not sure about the verbal ones. The signing has honestly been a really great thing. She can easily tell me now when she wants to nurse / eat / drink water / see the dog, etc.

I'm working on my business right now and DH is unemployed. So he hangs out in the play room with her all day.. and all day long he watches shows, programs or does college homework on the computer, or plays xbox. I *AM* worried about that.

He plays with her a little and will read to her when she brings him books, but she mostly plays by herself or hangs out with our dog all day(she requests the dog's presence by signing dog when the dog is downstairs... my child is really being "raised by wolves" ;o)

When she is tired, she sits on DH's lap and nods off to sleep while looking at whatever he's looking at.

I try to take breaks to read to her and just play with her, and she gets 1/2 hour to an hour of Signing Time some days.

When I was watching her full time and he was working, I spent a lot of time playing with her and showing her things. I'm trying to accept DH doesn't parent like me... if I nag him about stuff it is not good...he gets mad and acts like he plays with her a lot.

Also, he is "stuck" all day with the baby as I used to be and I know it can get draining. Everyone who knows DD would call her intense.

The only way to do things "my way" would be to basically quit my business and we need this business for our future.

So I guess I'm worried about more than just the DVDs. ;-(
(Though I just got DH to take the baby outside because it is nice out! Yay.)

That's tough. Does she have lots of toys within reach to play with during the day? She can probably occupy herself for quite some time every day usefully (and develop her thinking ability) by playing with building toys like blocks, Magneatos, Duplos / Quattros, wooden trains, etc. as well as puzzles (we have tons), and a bit later on stimulating toys like Capsela, marble runs, Legos, etc. Both of my kids have also loved plastic dinosaurs, Little People and other sorts of early role-playing imaginational toys. I'd make sure that her play area has plenty of toys of different types available for her to get out and play with on her own. An easel with dry-erase markers, paper with colored pencils, etc. is another idea of something she could use mostly on her own. Then if when you get home there's a mess, you can nag hubby to clean it up.

I personally don't think that the main problem here is lack of time with dad, if he's willing to read with her when she brings him a book, especially as a lot of free-play activities can be done alone. She probably gets a lot just from his presence and occasional emotional reinforcement as she goes about her day.

Still, and this is tough to recommend, I would demand that your husband keep the Xbox and TV shows off-- being a parent involves sacrifices, and those are pretty petty on the grand scheme of things. Maybe you could hunt up some news articles on the negative impacts of too much screen time.

We've never imposed any limitations on DD6's screen time, from the time when she was an infant, and her attention span is awesome. It always has been, even from infancy. We were amazed that a 4mo could watch an entire 20 minute show for preschoolers.

Of course, the major reason it's not being regulated is because she's not abusing it. She'll spend some time watching a show, playing on her DS, etc., but it's not something she wants to do all day long. She recently told us her favorite thing to do is read, and when she has to self-entertain, she spends more time with her toys than she does in front of a screen.

It sounds to me like your main concern is that your DD isn't getting enough 1-on-1 time in her day. There are a number of issues that can develop from that, but one of them would be communication delays. Television can help with that, because while she may not be participating in verbal communication, at least she's being exposed.

I'd expand her choices beyond sign language DVDs.

I actually think my daughter learned quite a bit of verbal language from signing time (although, obviously one person's experience is not a scientific study)- if she just signed a word... "shoe" was a favorite of my daughter I would always just reinforce that with lots of language - "Do you want your shoes? Where are your shoes? Can you say shoe?" Then I might ask her to say it. She was a great early talker and I think that being exposed to lots of forms of early language was helpful. We also had lots of story and nursery rhyme CD's - might get her away from the signing...

Her favorite toys are her wooden toys and books, plus anything that plays or makes music so she can dance to it. She builds towers, "reads" a lot to herself, and likes putting toys together / filling and carrying around containers, etc. right now. She pushes buttons on music toys over and over so she can dance and kind of sing.
I took some time this morning to try to teach her about her 3 piece shapes puzzle and sang the ABCs to her while showing her the wooden letters.

Yeah... I think he might be a tad addicted to / reliant on? the video games. When he plays, he wants to play for hours. We've talked about it before. He got me into games, too, and I understand a little better why they get addicting. I have favorite games, too, now, but I play maybe once a month or less.

I also get that it gets really boring up there. I watched shows sometimes, too, to pass the time when she was really small. What I don't mind is when he is doing homework or writing software (he is making a game for fun right now.) Even though he's plugged in (as am I working on the comp all day), he is being productive...But really, what business is it of mine whether he is productive or not while watching the baby?

I don't really see a way to significantly stop the game usage unless I want to take her all day. If I impose my parenting ideals on the situation it is like "FINE. YOU watch her." sort of thing. I am pretty lucky right now, you know? (In fact, I need to get back to work now lol)

Any favorites you can recommend? She used to like Word World, but Netflix took it off instant queue.

Shoes are big hit around here, too. She also loves making me put on her socks over and over haha.

My kids have been exposed to signs, English, and Chinese since birth. My daughter learned about 2 dozen signs before her speaking ability made signing unnecessary. We only use TV as a last resort to keep the children entertained so we can get things done. My son (almost 1 year) currently uses a couple signs and several spoken words. Some words he speaks and uses the sign for simultaneously.

There's no way to know whether or not the exposure to so many different forms of communication caused a delay for my daughter, but it's hard to imagine that it did. She was using over 100 English words by 18 months, and has an enormous vocabulary now (2.75).

I actually think that if anything, signing had the opposite effect, by showing the value of communication before children are ready to speak intelligibly. Exposure to multiple spoken languages on the other hand... I can see how that would cause a delay, but I still think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

As far as TV, I remember reading a study that purported that children who watched educational shows like Dora and Blues Clues had bigger vocabularies at a young age than kids who didn't. By contrast, children who watched non-educational TV had smaller vocabularies.

I personally know a child who is almost identical in age to my daughter who learned from the TV many of the things that my daughter learned from interacting with me and my wife and playing with educational toys (alphabet, colors, letter identification, even foreign language exposure). Are these children learning to learn in different ways, and is one ultimately a better learning strategy? I don't know. I know the AAP recommends no TV time for children under 2, but I don't know how they came to that conclusion and if it is based on the latest research.

It would seem that a child who spends more time with an adult than a TV would have a greater opportunity to ask questions, but questions usually don't come until well after 13 months. In the early stages children learn through observation. If the TV is offering more educational content than what can otherwise be provided, then it seems to me it's a positive thing. But that's coming from someone who uses TV as a last resort.

" Are these children learning to learn in different ways, and is one ultimately a better learning strategy? I don't know."

I'm on the side of human interaction being the optimal learning resource, but she is watching signing time when she'd otherwise be just walking around downstairs while I attempt to make breakfast or check my e-mail when I wake up. So.. I wouldn't be singing songs or anything in place of the event.

I am worried TV will do something to her attention span, do something bad to the connections her brain is making, or simply make books less appealing... but is it really bad? Are we going to evolve as a species along with our technology?

My husband watched way too much TV growing up, imo, and still does. He can concentrate for 17 hours at a time when he wants to write a program or make a 3d video... and his memory for things he's read is amazing. I don't know if that is just a gifted trait (I do the 17 hour thing, too)...

I think TV and games take away from what he could be doing to learn and grow as a person, though, in every day life. But he doesn't seem to care about that, while I do care about it.

You know, DD just made one of her first "sentences". DH asked her what she wanted and she quite absent-mindedly signed "more" and "food", so I came up and fed her some more.