We have one of those big-wooden-box type TVs, the kind that sits on the ground with no stand or anything. Since most of our diaper changes happen in the living room, I hung the wipies warmer/diaper holder thingy from the side of the TV.
Whenever I lay Seamus (3 mos.) down to change his diaper, he turns his head to see the TV. He loves it. I don’t think he’s seeing it the same way as we do. He just sees movement, light, colours. He lays there and giggles and flails his little arms and legs and coos and gurgles. Pretty much any sign of joy a baby can make.
But is it bad for him? Cecil seems pretty unclear on the dangers of sitting too close to the TV, and Seamus has to sit pretty close to even see it. He can still only see things a couple feet in front of him.
The other problems most people have with TV I don’t think apply here. It’s not giving him an excuse not to think – in fact, I think it stimulates him. And we aren’t watching anything gross or graphic because his older brother and sister are watching, too.
I just have this nagging voice in my head that “TV is BAD,” but with no clear reasoning behind it. Is there any real reason I shouldn’t let Seamus watch TV for as long as it makes him happy?
As long as Seamus doesn’t have his face right in front of the picture tubs, I don’t think there’s any physical danger.
From a child development point of view, however, all the sources I’ve heard say that letting children watch television at an early age (under three years old) is bad, because it (a) encourages passive entertainment (a bad habit), and (b) gets the child acquainted to focusing on one object for long periods of time, which is bad for ocular development. A young infant/toddler needs lots of ocular activity for visual development, which Seamus gets by normal day-to-day curiousity; giving him a TV to fixiate on circumvents that.
I think a little television from time-to-time is harmless – my own two-year-old gets several bursts of sing-alongs and cartoons and Teletubbies (ick) in a typical day, usually during meals, but never more than an hour or so all together. I would definitely not drop him in front of a TV and use it as a babysitter substitute, though I can certainly understand how tempting that is for a frazzled parent…
I think that it is probably not a bad stimulus, but as an offshoot of what rjung had to say, I’ll add that for a young, developing brain, the absence of true three-dimensional input might not be so great.
It’s probably OK to let him look at the TV while you change his diapers, Cess, but get him out in the yard from time to time and let him wonder about what bugs think.
I definitely don’t use the TV as a baby-sitter. My oldest got waaaay too attached to the TV for awhile (she told me that TV was her friend), so we have cut back a lot. I just let him lay there on the carpet for a few minutes after I change his diaper sometimes. And we get lots of other stimulus. He sits on the porch with me when his older brother & sister play outside, and he plays with all of us. He’s such a fun baby.
But I think I may heed your warnings and my own intuition and make sure that he doesn’t spend too much time in front of the boob tube.
Thankyou, WV_Woman, I love the name, too. And people say See-mus and Say-mus and Shane. I spend a lot of time correcting people, but sometimes with the older people at my grandmother’s church I just kind of let it go.
I’ve reared 3 highly intelligent, interesting, well-educated and well-adjusted children. (not proud or nuthin!) When they were babies, I would place them in front of the TV in their carriers for short periods of time (15 min or so) at a good distance. I would submit that by 3 mo., babies can see alot further than a couple of feet in front of them. I did this on the theory that this provided mental stimulation for them. They certainly enjoyed it - and it did them no harm. As I said, all my kids have higher than average IQs (she noted modestly) and I think this early stimulation (along with many other forms of stimulation I tried to provide) may have helped. I will admit that my youngest is a TV addict - the others are normal viewers. But he’s certainly not passive on any level.
I based the how-far-can-he-see on the distance of objects he finds interesting. If I move him back from the TV to, say, 4 feet, he seems to forget that the TV is there. But then, he seems able to see the ceiling fan from our bed, so i could be wrong.
