We have a large tv in our living room, and we have a small house. Lately I have been noticing my 3 month old gazing at the tv and sometimes she seems distracted by it. My sister is firmly against any television. However, my mom sees nothing wrong with it and says, “we had a tv going on in our house for background noise all the time and they can see faces and colors and can learn from it”. I’m so torn of my own opinion on if it’s okay to have television on around my baby. I needed to take a shower last week and played Miss Rachel while she was under the gym and she was laughing and smiling and loved it! But again, I’ve read it’s not recommended for children under the age of 2 to have any screen time. Thoughts/opinions/experiences would be greatly appreciated!
T.V. in living room with newborn, is this bad?
- Thread starter zman0101
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@zman0101 I just want to tell you that I made the same exact post when my son was born, and a few people gave me a hard time asking this. It was literally my first Reddit post lol.
So a newborn can't retain anything from TV, but time the TV is on is not spent talking to the baby. As long as you're making an effort to talk to them, you're fine. Since they're not retaininganything, you don't even need to keep out kid specific at that age.
My son is 17 months and I try to have the TV on less now than I did when he was a newborn because I'd rather him be engaged in other activities. I turn a kid's TV show on him for maybe twice a week and he's still ahead on milestones despite that.
So a newborn can't retain anything from TV, but time the TV is on is not spent talking to the baby. As long as you're making an effort to talk to them, you're fine. Since they're not retaininganything, you don't even need to keep out kid specific at that age.
My son is 17 months and I try to have the TV on less now than I did when he was a newborn because I'd rather him be engaged in other activities. I turn a kid's TV show on him for maybe twice a week and he's still ahead on milestones despite that.
conservativemom55
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newhopeinhim
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@zman0101 I’m a speech-language pathologist, and if I could get a nickel for every parent that asked me this, I wouldn’t need to be a practicing therapist anymore
Like people have told you, OP, screen time isn’t inherently bad, but it can take distract you from interacting with your child which is important for their cognitive and language development. That said, we all need to take a breather and just sit down at some point— what you can do while the TV is on is narrate to your child what’s happening on the screen, what you’re seeing, what you think about the movie/show, etc. It’s a way to squeeze in some extra languages modeling for your little one 
Edit to clarify: This advice is more geared toward babies!
Like people have told you, OP, screen time isn’t inherently bad, but it can take distract you from interacting with your child which is important for their cognitive and language development. That said, we all need to take a breather and just sit down at some point— what you can do while the TV is on is narrate to your child what’s happening on the screen, what you’re seeing, what you think about the movie/show, etc. It’s a way to squeeze in some extra languages modeling for your little one Edit to clarify: This advice is more geared toward babies!
@zman0101 A newborn can’t learn from TV. That doesn’t mean a little bit of TV is harmful it’s just not beneficial.* The research in this area shows that kids don’t undergo the cognitive shift necessary to learn from screens until somewhere around 18 to 30 months. And many organizations do recommend no screens under 2.
Background TV can be harmful in that research has shown parents tend to talk and interact with their kids less while the TV is on and kids can be distracted by it even when it isn’t for them.
Again, with the caveat being that I doubt infrequent background TV is going to harm your child’s development, keeping it on all day and night very well might though.
We personally stopped watching TV around my son when he got interested in it which was sometime between 3-4 months. He is turning two this week and we will be allowing some TV moving forward but it will be limited. We want to do a weekly family movie night for example
*eta to be clear here I mean educationally and developmentally beneficial which is what the AAP means when they say it. Beneficial in terms of having sane parents is a different argument the AAP doesn’t consider
Background TV can be harmful in that research has shown parents tend to talk and interact with their kids less while the TV is on and kids can be distracted by it even when it isn’t for them.
Again, with the caveat being that I doubt infrequent background TV is going to harm your child’s development, keeping it on all day and night very well might though.
We personally stopped watching TV around my son when he got interested in it which was sometime between 3-4 months. He is turning two this week and we will be allowing some TV moving forward but it will be limited. We want to do a weekly family movie night for example
*eta to be clear here I mean educationally and developmentally beneficial which is what the AAP means when they say it. Beneficial in terms of having sane parents is a different argument the AAP doesn’t consider
charlieblues
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@jane_ We are a hockey family and watch our favourite team every time they play. LO loves it. It's a family thing for us. We talk, we play while it's on, and LO gets excited when it's on. For me, I don't stress about it because it's a family tradition, we are spending time together, and she's amused by something other than me singing or dancing for a little while. I think the main take away is balance!
@zman0101 I am a SAHM and play TV in the background most of the day because otherwise I would go insane. We didn’t really start doing screen time for my son until closer to 1 but again I’d go insane without it. He’s two now and gets screen time pretty regularly but it’s always controlled so he can only watch certain approved things and for a set time. During my pregnancy with #2 I was more lenient with the time limits and noticed negative behaviors so we scaled back to about an hour a day.
@ezek1234 I was raised by a sahm and I can honestly say
The constant background tv did not harm me in any capacity whatsoever. I graduated college. I was top of my class. I’m an apparel designer. And an excellent chef. I also was watching a lot of science shows
So with my toddler, I pick older shows that are low stimulation and educational. We hate bluey. But we love Zaboomafoo.
The constant background tv did not harm me in any capacity whatsoever. I graduated college. I was top of my class. I’m an apparel designer. And an excellent chef. I also was watching a lot of science shows
So with my toddler, I pick older shows that are low stimulation and educational. We hate bluey. But we love Zaboomafoo.
christianwomanljc
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myownmynativeland
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@christianwomanljc We do little bear, David the gnome, Eurekas castle, Franklin, Under the Unbrella Tree.. we tried bear in the big blue house but he wasn’t as into it. All of these are on YouTube. My toddler loves Elmo too but I feel like even Elmo is a bit much.
@myownmynativeland Elmo is a LOT.
christianwomanljc
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@myownmynativeland Thank you so much. 
I appreciate your reply.
I appreciate your reply.@christianwomanljc
- Steve Irwin’s show from animal planet is good
- Zaboomafoo
- Anything on National Geographic but we stuck with a show called Planet Earth
- Go to YouTube and type in types of documentaries you want to watch and countless good ones are free. My son likes dolphins and pigs and random stuff like that so we will watch an hour of education on it and it’s extremely plain and low stimulation.