what tv shows do your kids watch?

maybe i'm on the wrong track here (bad momma), but please forgive me....

my kids have watched videos since they were about 4 months old--baby genius, baby einstein, brainy baby, and more recently baby signing time. i'm looking to maybe interest them in actual shows, but don't want to buy the dvd and have them not like it. i don't want to rent because they would be in spanish here and i want them exposed to as much english as possible (plus the voice-overs annoy me to NO end), so until they start bilingual preschool, besides me, it's just the tv...

we have direct tv from the u.s., so we get all major u.s. networks and cable. so instead of having them sit in front of the tv all day, i would like suggestions from you knowledgeable ladies....

i had heard hi-5 is fabulous, but mine weren´t really interested. i want them to be major disney addicts like me, but mickey mouse clubhouse also seems geared toward preschoolers and they didn't pay attention for more than 10 seconds. sprout plays a "good night show" during bath time (which is when the tv is on while i bathe one, the other watches tv) but angelina ballerina and kipper are WAY over their heads and they don't grab their attention at all. so what suggestions do you have for 16 month-olds (other than the AAP recommends no tv time for children under 2)? please mention the network and what time it is on. TIA

 

Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer! Those were the earliest shows that Nadia got into, well before age 2.

Both are relatively educational, or at least, they're not pure junk. Nadia learned quite a bit of Spanish from Dora, actually!

Sorry, I have no idea about networks or times -- we set our DVR to tape them, because she *still* occasionally watches them. K&K aren't glued to either of them the way they are to Signing Time, but they will stop and watch a bit.


ETA -- it's hard at this age, because they just don't have much attention span. But there are shows for the 2-4 age group that I've really loved -- Backyardigans, Little Einsteins and Pinky Dinky Doo are my favorites. Right now, Nadia is into Word World and Super Why, although she still loves her old "comfort" shows....

 

My guys actually love the Wiggles! It is great as I still have the video tapes from my dd. But it is on here on Disney channel at 7 am. 3 of the 4 guys actually have degrees in early childhood education. The boys love to watch and get up and dance with them and do the hand movements when they do. It is way cute! I even have a cd for the car so we can listen when we take dd to school.
Other than that, they really aren't too into the television. They do like Diego and Handy Manny- but get distracted way easy- so most of the time if the tv is on it is for mom to watch the news in the morning and daddy to watch news at night!! Sis will keep the one in our kitchen on 24/7 to cartoons if it were up to her!!
Lanie

 

I'm trying to remember back to that age......ds has always been a tv junkie & dd doesn't care for it. I think the popular ones were: Yo Gabba Gabba, Dora the Explorer, Baby Einstein, Cars (movie) and Finding Nemo (movie).

 

Sesame Street!!!! They love the characters and get really excited when they see them. They also like Clifford- since it's all about dogs, and they love dogs. But honestly, I'm such a huge SS fan myself,that they BETTER like it, because that's what we watch around here! :laughing: Clifford comes on at 830am on PBS, so they catch the last 15 minutes a few days a week if they finish breakfast early, and then SS comes on at 9. And that's about the extent of their TV. On afternoons where they really need calming down, didn't nap well or whatever, I'll let them watch a SS DVD or Signing Times DVD. They've learned a lot of signs from it!

 

My girls love Sesame Street! They also like Jack's Big Music Show (on Noggin). That's about it for us. I can turn on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora or Curious George and it grabs their attention somewhat, but they won't sit and watch a show (but I don't really mind that!).

 

At that age they loved the Backyardigans and the Wiggles.

Now it is Dora, pinky dinky doo, wow wow wubby and max and ruby, they still really like the Backyardigans and some of the others too.

 

I like PBS Kids channel.. no commercials!!! My girls love Sesame Street, Miffy, and Franny's feet. (little secret- I like Miffy too- she is cute!).

 

As I read this, Blues Clues is on tv right now .

My guys won't really sit & 'watch' tv but it'll grab their attention for a few minutes here or there. I usually throw on Blue's Clues from 6-7am (on Noggin) & then whatever I feel up to between 7-8am til breakfast....Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora, Backyardigans. Right now I think it's more what I can stand watching/listening to vs what they'll watch . I think I need to invest in these Signing Time videos people keep talking about. My boys really will only 'watch' videos in the car & thus far we've only allowed Baby Einstein.

I think this age is hard because their attention spans are SO short!

 

NOGGIN Blues Clues, Wow Wow and Oswald at that age and they loved the Moose inbetween shows
NICK JR. Dora was an early favorite, Max & Ruby
DISNEY Handy Manny they didn't get into Mickey until age 2

My kids never really like Sesame Street and Thomas the Train, Caillou have been huge here lately along with Imagination Movers on Disney.

 

I'm in Canada so I'm not sure of the networks or anything but my boys love In The Night Garden (similar to teletubies) and Sesame Street. Those are about the only two they will actually sit and watch......for awhile.

Erica

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Wiggles! Nadia was obsessed for a long time, and we took her to the concert at about 22 months -- seriously, I had a little groupie, LOL.

We haven't watched in years, but I think the show is a little different now? I liked the older ones...

Teletubbies is supposed to be great for very young children -- soothing, or something -- but I find it strange.

 

Mine couldn't care less until around 2 and even now they don't really sit and watch a show (they'll watch part of it while doing something else) and they'll shut the TV off at the mere mention of going outside. That said, they LOVE Super Readers. I cannot believe how quickly their letter recognition improved once PBS put this show on at 8AM. They also like Word World, Clifford, and Barney.

 

At that age their fave thing to watch was Monsters Inc. and Shrek.

 

There's only two they'll actually watch so I can get something done...like empty the dishwasher! They watch the Wiggles and Blues Clues. If I sit and watch with them, they'll watch the Backyardigans, My Friend's Tigger and Poo, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. They never got into watching Sesame Street except during Elmo. Otherwise, everything else doesn't intrigue them. They don't watch the shows everyday except the Wiggles. That is they're all time fav. right now. HTH!

 

thanks so much! i'll be sure to check for those, especially the wiggles, since it seems to be a common denominator--is it on disney? nick? i have no idea LOL

found backyardigans this morning and they could have CARED LESS--but i should say the my gym at home segment on baby first tv absolutely hypnotizes them, too bad it only lasts 5 minutes!!

and i wish i had signing time on our pbs station, but we don't

 

Mine LOVE My friends Tigger and Pooh on the Disney Channel ... they also were big fans of Wilbur, which is on Discovery Kids ... and Barney and Sesame Street on Sprout.

 

My son loves Handy Mandy (Disney, 9am here), Bob the Builder (PBS), and Thomas the Train (PBS). Not sure of the times of the other two since we don't watch them regularly. He also likes The Wiggles (Disney) and the new show which is Imagination Movers (Disney, 10am) it's kind of like the Wiggles where they do a lot of singing and dancing. Oh he also watches Sesame Place (it's on PBS and PBS Sprout) which we watch at around 8/8:30 not really sure what time since it's only labeled as Musical Mornings.

If you have Directv then you can also do a search for the show you want and it will give you the times it is playing and the channel it is on too. So you can mark it if you want to watch it (it will automatically change over) or so you can write down the time it's on in your area.

 

When mine were at your babies' age and still now they're huge Sesame Street fans (from 9mo on actually). Back then they'd glance every now and then at the TV while playing, but would pay attention to Elmo. Now, I set the DVR and save it for around 4. I put it on and they are mesmorized for the entire hour and I'm able to make dinner! Just yesterday my Sarah was climbing down the stairs to the garage counting steps and just kept counting all the way to 20! I have absolutely nothing to do with this...it was all Sesame Street :yahoo:

 

Sesame Street! That is pretty much all they watched. Especially Elmo's world.

 

My boys are big Clifford and Curious George fans. They will sit through the first story and then pop back in every now and again for the second one. The boys could care less about Word World, but it's my fav.! I think they're all on PBS.

 

My girls are completely addicted to Yo Gabba Gabba. The songs are so catchy, my dh and I catch ourselves singing them constantly.

 

Dora, Dora, Dora, Dora....
Did I say Dora????

 

Mine love the initial music and first few minutes of Sesame Street, then they tune in for Elmo. But they LOVE SuperWhy!!!! (both on PBS) They hum along when Pig sings the alphabet, and when they are spelling something, they try to say the letter (if the character says, "E", Con will go "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"). They like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on weekends in the morning and they love Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune at night. They've loved the theme music to Jeopardy since they were really tiny.

 

What?? You're letting them watch TV LMBO!! I do to from time to time

Alexis & Peyton love The Backyardigans (Nickelodeon at 9:00am here in WA) ~ they don't actually stop and 'watch' but they will start dancing when they're singing...which is quite a bit. They're both slowly starting to watch a little more tv here and there.

I also love Disney and have occassionally put in The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Peter Pan ~ they won't sit and watch, but it does grab their attention for a few minutes.

April

 

The Wiggles are huge around here (Disney 7am) as well as Sesame Street (PBS 9am), especially for Elmos World. They also occasionally watch Dora (Nick 2pm), Yo Gabba Gabba (Noggin 5:30 pm) and Blues Clues (Noggin 6pm) if we are home and its on. I set the DVR to record The Wiggles and Sesame Street every day. The we just watch them when its convenient. Although, the do request the Wiggles about 15 times a day!

 

We watched the Baby Eistein videos with DS was small. However, nothing keeps his attention like Sesame Street. I think it's educational enough to let him watch it whenever he wants. Sadly, you can't even say anything to him while it's on. He can't hear a thing!!

 

Sesame Street, and Word World - they LOVE LOVE LOVE Word World...I don't know if you can get to a Target (do they have them in Mexico?) they have Word World DVD's...we don't do Noggin or Nick Jr. yet - just PBS and Sprout occasionally...

oh and in all seriousness - it dosen't HAVE to be a kids show - my 2 love Food Network! they will seriously sit and watch Rachael Ray

 

They were big Sesame Street fans at that age, as well as the Wiggles. They would also watch Baby Einstein DVDs.

Now they love Oswald and Dora. They'll watch other things, but those two shows are the only thing that really truly HOLD their attention.

 

Wiggles is on Disney early mornings (6 or 7?) and ours loved that show. Jack's Big Music Show on Noggin was a huge hit with our twins at that age and is now a big hit with our 1.5 year old too (Noggin I think around 10/10:30.) Our youngest loves Teletubbies which annoys me as I don't see him learning anything from it but if it comes on he'll knock everybody down to get to the TV I think it's on Sprout but have no idea of the time. Yo Gabba Gabba is a huge hit with him too and was with the twins when they were younger (Noggin late morning or afternoon?) If you have DirecTV you can do a search for a show using the Title and it'll show you channels and times ALL of the boys LOVE the new Disney Show called Imagination Movers as it's a lot of music and songs and they've always loved that. Disney channel but no idea of time. We have Tivo so I just play it from our saved menu. I agree with pp that their first love of real movies was Disney Pixar Cars and Finding Nemo (which they both can recite lines from throughout the whole movies.) My kids are little TVheads

 

Jack's Big Music Show is HUGE in this home. I have to admit, there's a couple episodes that when I see they're playing "On Demand", I get all happy! It's such a cute show. Laurie Berkner is on it and I used to not be able to STAND her, but now I've been downloading some of her songs onto my Ipod for them.

They're starting to like Blue's Clues. And of course, the Elmo portion of Sesame Street, oh, and Murray too. They used to like Barney, but not so much now.

 

We used to be Backyardigans fans (which Peyton is addicted to now...) but we've recently become Blues Clues and Thomas the Train fans. Blues Clues is a big one and .... if you watch closely, Joe and Steve (the hosts depending on the show) actually do alot of sign language. The boys have actually learned alot from the show and have shown me that they're acutally paying attention when i think they're not. Still, they'll ask to watch Backyardigans alot too...and the movies are adorable. I'm a backyardigans fan as well. :FIFblush:

 

The Elmo's World segment on Sesame Street

Wonder Pets on Noggin

Baby Einstein videos



Now they are ADDICTED to Word World and Super Why. Seriously, not only do they know the upper case alphabet, but they are now learning the lower case, too. I know it's because of these shows (well, I guess I do a little, too). They are just amazing.

 

At that age their faves were The Backyardigans and Blue's Clues.

 

Backyardigans, Dora, Diego, The Wonder Pets, Little Einsteins.

I like most of the shows, except for Wonder Pets. I'm going to shoot Ming-Ming next duck season.