Last night Abby woke up at least twice. This from the girl who's been sleeping through the night since 6 weeks. Something is really wrong when she wakes up crying in the middle of the night. Every time something goes wrong with her I blame it on teething... even though she only cut 2 teeth at Christmas and nothing since. Well the past few days her drool machine has kicked into overtime, so I think it really (really!) is teething this time. And she came down with a snotty nose. And she has a bit of a fever this morning. But she might have come down with a cold too, or still have remnants of her ear infection... You could just tell she really didn't feel well.
So when she woke up again at 5:45 and would not go back to sleep, I gave in and fixed her a bottle and prepared to be up with her for awhile. Rocky was up getting ready for school anyway. After he left, Abby just wanted to cling to her blanket and snuggle. I popped a Baby Einstein DVD in the computer and we kicked back for 40 minutes. After which I made her another small bottle and put her down for a nap (at the time when she's usually waking up for the day...).Before Abby was born, I'd decided I would not be one of "those" mothers who sit their kids in front of the tv. The thought of videos such as Baby Einstein and even Praise Baby made me roll my eyes. "They surely don't get anything from those movies, and even if they do, shouldn't that be things I teach them?"
Fast forward to last fall. Abby was about 5 months old, and I went to FCCS's Barn Sale. Someone had donated a whole bunch of Baby Einstein DVDs and CDs. I thumbed through them, and one in particular caught my eye: Baby Wordsworth. We were planning on trying some baby sign language with Abby, and I thought maybe this will be a good supplement.
Over the last 6 months Abby and I have watched that video a handful of times, usually on nasty winter days when we want to snuggle and kill 40 minutes of time in the afternoon. This morning she smiled, and laughed, and I got a refresher course on some household sign language words!
I'm still pretty against tv in general, especially for children. We don't have cable, and we don't even have a tv that works with antenna channels after the big switch to HD a few years ago. There really isn't much good stuff on anymore anyway. Rocky and I will watch the occasional episode of NCIS or Fringe online every week or two. But we've decided we have much better things we can do with our time the rest of the time.
Who knows if Abby's occasional exposure to classical music through Baby Einstein will make her smarter in the long run. She gets enough music from other sources in our family... :)
What are your thoughts on tv & movies? In general & for children?
well, they say before the age of 2 they shouldn't watch any at all. After Ezekiel was born I had the tv on all the time left on PBS create channel. I was able to enjoy watching cooking and how tos while nursing or he was sleeping and he loved to see the red swirly thing every once and a while. But he's never watched tv even if its on. Recently we have encountered an exception. Jim got me the Babies movie for mothers day. Well, I thought it would be a good idea to see if Ezekiel would be interested in it. He's been into babies lately anyway, any pictures he sees or babies in real life, plus he's going to be a big brother so I thought it might be educational. He loved it! And I mean loves it, like we have it on repeat from the time he gets up until he goes to bed. He insists emphatically that it be on. Now he doesn't just sit and watch it all day. He runs around plays etc but stops and watches at parts he really likes. This has been going on for a few days now and I'm hoping he will get tired of it soon or maybe the move this weekend will break him of it. I feel a bit guilty and like I should be putting my foot down. But its been really helpful since I haven't been feeling well with the pregnancy. So my opinion I guess is in moderation and being careful of what it is, especially for children.
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