There’s not to much question about it - overall most child development resources will strongly advise against television before 2. There’s increased rates of ADD, I’ve recently heard of it possibly being linked to the increase in autism, and overall - it’s just not conducive during this tender age to language development. Any child will know the tv will not respond to anything they say so they become set in a passive mode. I’ve read more books then I care to admit to on development and I clearly know the disadvantages associated to television before 2 years of age.

But - we let Sal watch tv. Salvador was born into a family with 2 parents addicted to tv. I’m not sure he’ll ever know the extent to how much tv we like to watch as we steathily try to hide our tv watching - waiting till he is asleep. Before he was one I was a tv nazi. Zero tv allowed. I sighed heavily when my husband would watch his games and Sal would be around. I tried hopelessly to shield Sal’s eyes when we’d go into a sports bar and televisions would be visible from every angle. Overall - it’s difficult. Television is pervasive - and it sure doesn’t help when your parents are addicted to it too. We’ve given up some tv - mostly since we need a little sleep and waiting till Sal’s asleep doesn’t leave us much tv watching time (Sal isn’t one of those baby’s that likes to sleep…)

Sal’s tv watching started innocently. Talking to my husband’s mom I learned that all her kids watched Sesame Street when they were babies. They all turned out alright - 2 going to Stanford, the other with 2 PhDs - seemed like it couldn’t be all that bad - and what if that helped them just a little, to get them to where they got? Well - I figured 15 minutes here or there of sesame street wouldn’t hurt. I underestimated how our genes might come into play - Sal almost instantly became addicted. He’ll hiss an “s” sound pointing to the tv anxious to watch sesame street. One particularly scary time was when Sal was supposedly taking an unusually long nap in our room - I later found him awake - happily watching a tivo’d episode of sesame street. How he managed to work the remote correctly is still a mystery. Luckily he hasn’t been able to reproduce that feat with any consistency.

Then the mornings got rougher. Sal kept waking up earlier and earlier - and at first - Cris would try to keep him entertained since I was up during the night with him - but then - we both needed a little more sleep so Sesame Street became our easy way to catch a few more z’s in the morning.

We stayed away from the DVD’s too for a while. The baby einsteins just were to expensive and I didn’t quite get what was so great about them - but then a friend asked if we had any DVD’s to borrow while they took a trip and I got to thinking - a couple DVD’s probably would be good to have for emergencies. I started researching. I knew I didn’t want the baby einsteins - I wanted something that maybe got him a little more exposure to letters or numbers (the whole early introduction to academics is a whole other topic that I think I’ll go into in another post another day - I do know that there are a lot of pro’s and cons and yes, have been doing a lot of reading on that too.) Anyways - I found out about “The Letter Factory” through some of the different bulletin boards I lurk on and actually read all 300 amazon reviews (5 stars - pretty phenomenal on amazon to get that many high reviews). Although the DVD is geared for a 2 - 5 year old - I read that a few of the Mom’s with younger kids (15 monthish) seemed to really enjoy the DVD as well and some had even learned the sounds of the letters through watching the DVD. Well - we bought it. Sal loved it - seemed to instantly imitate some of the letters - and soon after we could ask him almost any letter what it “said” and Sal would proudly give us the sound. Problem was - it also added to his tv time.

I still feel guilty for the early introduction. I think a lot of mom’s do. It’s tough - you want to do everything perfectly - yet sometimes getting a few precious moments to yourself can be oh so valuable. I think I used to silently judge those moms that let their babies watch tv. Now I am one of them, and fear those moms that silently (or not so silently) judge us mom’s that haven’t been so perfect. But - my husband’s brought up a good point - a happy mom’s better for the family. And if I’m one of those mom’s that needs a crutch of some tv time to keep my sanity - well - so be it.