For bedtime I like

http://www.maisyfun.com/videos/

(on the UK version of the site)

There are three little videos there for free, one of which is called Bedtime. My son was given the book (Maisy's Bedtime), and he loves seeing the video and recognising bits from the book.

The only Maisy book we have is "Maisy makes Gingerbread."



I remember when my eldest was much younger; we pretended it was a recipe book and followed it and made some gingerbread the same way Maisy did.

What a mess that was. The gingerbread turned out okay though.

Ours do watch DVDs occasionally but apart from the David Attenborough type stuff, a few filmds they have got as presents and not too much else.
I still don't believe that the non-interaction of TV has any advantage at all over books and other forms of play.

When I read to my kids - there's always questions from them and comments and discussion. Feedback. You don't get that from TV.

The only use I can see for TV/DVDs is either when the children are too ill for anything else or you really need to get on with something and/or need a break from them. And we're as guilty as anyone.

To pretend that toddlers and younger are getting much out of this is pretty naive. (This is directed at the thread in general and not a particular poster).

I don't know. My three year old watched a Nina and the Neurons about belly buttons and ever since insists that babies go in tummys. She just stores her imaginary baby in there, along with her imaginary doctor (???????)

I tell people it's a sling thing, but she learned that babies come from tummies. OK I interact with TV, and when they showed the scan of the baby in the womb, I showed her her scan......

Like everything, kids get out what is put in. If you reinforce the educational message, or add one, they will learn.

Well, in my opinion, forget the dumbed down stuff they make for kids (apart from pingu), my little one watches The Simpsons and loves it!

Apart from the usual, my kids (2,5,6) particularly like to watch the following, normally as a 30-45 min wind-down before bed-time

Die Sendung mit der Maus - more for the older 2 though

Come Outside (a dumbed down english version of the above, with Nurse Gladys Emanuel ) - these were all on Youtube last time I looked

Octonauts - even I like this one, really good fun and slightly educational

Shaun the Sheep / Shaun das Schaf

Oddly enough our wee one likes the classical music channel on Cablecom (Classica HD). Nurejev in Swan Lake was a firm favourite for a while.

Side effects include him standing in front of the radio, waving his arms about to the music as if conducting an orchestra, and understanding that when you do something nice, people will clap their hands. So when he's done something he thinks was good, he now gives himself a little round of applause.

CBeebies, from the BBC is a dedicated channel for pre-school age children.
Harmless and educational (not all), with a mixture of "live" and animated programming.

Runs from 8.00 to 8.00 daily.

Available from Zattoo.com; stand alone player or through a browser - free or subscription (better picture quality and no ads - although ads can be blocked with browser add-ons); continual recording also available.

Also able to watch live with BBC iPlayer, using a VPN (free or subscription).

My two-year-old enjoys Finding Nemo, Shark Tale, Toy Story and Shrek. He also is a bit of a snob and is turned off if it's not in HD.

How I wish I was a kid today and not all those years ago...!

My daughter loves CBeebies.
One of it's main advantages is that it is a non-commercial channel

I agree with the CBeebies suggestion on Zattoo (an awesome source of entertainment anyway) Sesamestreet.org is an awesome site for kids. Curious George is also fantastic.

For what it's worth, I think we can't pretend TV and internet etc aren't a part of our kids lives. All we can do is ensure that we give them good choices and try to limit their intake in a manner that doesn't leave them "addicted" and trying to sneak screen time whenever there's an unsupervised moment later.