Tuesday, March 5, 2013

No screen time until 3

So if you have read my blog before you know I am a huge reader or parenting books. I know from having read every sleep, baby and brilliant child book for the first 2 years of baby's life that they can often contradict each other and some things are just common sense.

I particularly like the books that focus on brain research and development. I am currently reading, The Whole-Brain Child, and boy is it perfect timing. We see Ocoee having completely illogical reactions that are purely emotional. For instance, the other day her dad brought her car seat in to adjust the straps since she is growing so fast. She usually hates being in her car seat. This time she wanted to sit in it and be strapped in. She cried and was very upset when he had to take her out to flip it over and work on it. Though we didn't get it, she was having a very emotional reaction to her car seat and needing to be in it.

One thing that I am a firm believer in and that we have also managed to do pretty easily is no screen time before 3.

So I must admit that at age 15 months on the 6 hour plane ride to Hawaii we did use the ipad with Ocoee. We have one app she loves that is music and simple graphics that are interactive, we have an ebook for kids and we used the camera to make videos and share them with her. We did limit this to 5 or so minutes at a time and to be honest she was only sorta into it. She also gets videos from her grandparents that she can watch, and these are a few seconds long.

At home we never have the TV on when she is awake and recently cancelled cable so we never have the TV on anyways. We read and watch movies from Netflix in our free time at night after Ocoee is in bed. We don't miss TV and see the benefits in our lives of not having it around and also in Ocoee's development.

She loves to read books and is getting to the age where she likes to flip through them herself, babbling away and we know her imagination is beginning to take off. She also sleeps great and some research has indicated screen time causes poor sleep habits. One of the biggest things about no screen time is that she will not be exposed to the stereotypes and fanatic push to BUY, BUY, BUY that comes with commercials. We never eat fast food, our friends aren't fast food people and she never sees commercials for fast food. So hopefully she will not have the desire for a happy McNasty meal ever.

Since we are rookies at this it is nice to see how our research has led to a choice and the choice is working out well.

So what are your opinions on screen time for kids under 3? What apps do your kids love. Ocoee's favorite is Little Fox Juke Box that plays 3 songs and allows her to tap to make things happen. By far the best app we have found.

Cheers
J

No comments:

Post a Comment