Videos for Newborns

When my daughter was still in the hospital’s NICU (see previous post My Labor and Delivery: the hopes and the reality), I wanted to be able to give her something visually stimulating. There were plenty of medical machines and people around, so perhaps she was doing just fine in terms of having enough to watch. I wanted her to experience something like any other newborn might be experiencing, though, like a mobile or brightly colored toys and books. My wanting to give her something fun and stimulating to watch was likely just my way of adapting to the situation, my way of trying to provide something of a typically “baby” experience as an escape from the sterile medical environment we were in.

I didn’t have any mobiles or any visually stimulating items from her nursery with me, but I did have my tablet. I looked for a few videos online aimed at newborns and did find a few. I battled with myself about whether it was really appropriate to show them to her, since it’s unclear whether exposing a baby to videos can be positive or negative for development (Bartlett, 2013).

I highly recommend reading some of the articles noted at the bottom of this article and elsewhere about the debate on the effects of babies viewing videos. The debate about the studies relating to the Baby Einstein products is particularly intriguing since some of the research seems to have been swayed by individuals and groups with a vested interest in arriving at a particular conclusion. Researching how videos and the internet can affect us is a fascinating area of study that still seems to be in its infancy, and we have a lot to learn about how our development at all stages of life can be influenced.

I decided to show a few short, basic videos to my daughter. They provided visual stimulation with bright colors and highly contrasting colors as well as interesting background music. My daughter particularly liked this one:

She also found these interesting, though the one above was definitely her favorite:

The internet has provided a wealth of videos, many of which seem like they may be useful for raising a child, including ones with nursery rhymes and to teach games or skills. Have you found others that seem to capture your baby’s interest in a positive way?

Sources and Further Reading:

• Bartlett, Tom. “Researchers Question Agenda in ‘Baby Einstein’ Study.” Chronicle of Higher Education. 20 Sept. 2013. Vol. 60, Issue 3. p.A11.
• Ferguson, Christopher J. and M. Brent Donnellan. “Is the Association between Children’s Baby Video Viewing and Poor Language Development Robust? A reanalysis of Zimmerman, Christakis, and Meltzoff (2007).” Developmental Psychology. Jan. 2014. Vol. 50, Issue 1. pp.129–137.
• Hayes, Dade. Anytime Playdate: Inside the Preschool Entertainment Boom, Or, How Television Became My Baby’s Best Friend. New York: Free, 2008. Print.
• Pevzner, Holly. “Babies to Big Kids.” Scholastic Parent & Child. Dec. 2013 / Jan. 2014. Vol. 21, Issue 4. pp.32–34.
• Robb, Michael B. et al. “Just a Talking Book? Word learning from watching baby videos.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Mar. 2009. Vol. 27, Issue 1. pp.27–45.