how much is too much TV?

[fatnhap]

I'm running out of ideas to entertain my 6 month old and although I had all kinds of grand theories about children and tele before my ds was born, i now find myself plonking her in front of the tele for a 15 minute break. What is scary is the way she took to it, eyes glued ... mesmerized. Advice wanted on whether this is a bad idea and, if not, how long is it ok to have a 6 month old (4 and 1/2 months corrected if that makes any difference) watch ceebies channel? What about radiation and stuff like that from TV screens?

[tiffini]

i dont think 15 mins is anything to worry about, remember you do need a break, and if your relaxed so will your ds be.
however if you are worried you could try putting chidrens music on, my kids loved music from a very early age, it is also said to help them learn by releasing some chemical in the brain

[velcrobott]

What about putting her in front of toys ? Would that not have the same effect?

[velcrobott]

Was asking DH this question... play pen was his answer then followed by generations have done without TV and were able to amuse tehmselves without it!

[fatnhap]

i kind of thought tele isn't the best idea. problem is dd seems to be bored quite easily, put her in front of toys and she has this 'been there, done that' expression and gets fed up in 10 minutes. we go out for walks but 1/2 hour and she's screaming to come out of her pram. needs LOTS of stimulation, very tiring and trying to be as creative as possible butn running out of ideas.

[Seona1973]

I know a lot of people dont like them but when my dd was this age I used to put her in a baby walker. She got to see things from a different perspective and it had toys and buttons to press to make a noise (she like making noise!!).

When she got fed up with the toys on the walker itself I used to straddle her plastic baby gym thing over the tray of the walker and that gave her some different toys to play with (also meant she couldnt lose them and drop them on the floor as they were attached to the play gym.)

She did like the door bouncer as well but its a bit more fiddly to get them in and out of.

[skerriesmum]

Agree that baby bouncer was great at that age, you can't leave them in it for more than 20 minutes but that's usually enough to have a cup of tea at least s