Toddlers & TV

There is (and has been) a huge debate of allowing your baby or toddler to watch tv.  Is it okay, maybe in moderation, not at all....the list goes on and on.  Well, be prepared!  Im going to give you my take on it, the good, the bad, and the horrible motherly.....

I have a phobia of silence.  Okay, maybe not silence per say, but being able to hear things (that may or may not be completely in my head)  that are scary.  I have been this way all my life, and I am sure it will continue.  I'm over it, I have accepted it, and I am a fully functioning human being.  Well, I always need sound on...I don't care what it is, but sound is good.  So, we turn on the TV.

Now, now, now, before you get mad at me, listen here.  If the girls are awake, we only have things playing like Miss Spiders Sunny Patch Friends, Baby Einstein, or some other happy baby/toddler DVD.  Also, we do not have cable or satellite, so its only DVDs.  I choose them.  

So when the girls get up, I give them a sippy of water, plop them in front of some good old TV, and make them breakfast.  It keeps their attention for....maybe a minute.  No literally, its on so much that they don't even pay attention to it.  Its not a good distraction tool for me.  They really aren't interested in it!!  I might be worried if they sat in front of it in a daze and never got up, but they literally don't care.  Well, they do like to turn it off, and they LOVE the remote control, but other than that, I am not in any way worried about them becoming TV addicts.

My mom HATES it.  She hates background tv noise.  she would much rather play music, but that really doesn't cut it for me.  (that's whats nice about it being my house!)  She sees that the girls don't care, so shes cool with it being on for me.  Usually we aren't in the living room anyway.  We love to hang out in their room (there's no toys in there, but they love it!)

So for the toddlers and tv debate, I am all for it.  As long as your toddler isn't glued to it obsessed.  Kids now a days are all about technology, but they need to go for a run in the park too!!  I feel like we have a good balance in our home.  I feel like were real, and we know in a perfect world, our children wouldn't know what the TV was for, and they would be saying 100+ words by now, but we don't!  So for those of you who worry that maybe you're doing the wrong thing by having the tv on, don't sweat it.  Just make sure they aren't fixed on it, and neither are you!  I couldn't live without background noise, I would go nuts!  

That's my little schpeel  for the day, I am off to....watch some TV!