NewPlew

From telegraph.co.uk:

Frederick Zimmerman, author of the American study and an associate professor of health services at the University of Washington, said: “Excessive viewing before age three has been shown to be associated with problems of attention control, aggressive behaviour and poor cognitive development.”

In summary: don’t want a bully? Pay attention to your kid and don’t stick ‘em in front of the tube so much!

Remind me to keep Thalia away from the idiot box in her early years:

From Reuters.com

About 90 percent of U.S. children under age 2 and as many as 40 percent of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers said on Monday.

They said the number of young kids watching TV is much greater than expected.

“We don’t know from the study whether it is good or bad. What we know is that it is big,” said Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, whose research appears in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

A second study suggested excessive TV viewing can lead to attention and learning problems down the road.

The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 should not watch any and older children should watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming.

But 29 percent of parents surveyed by Zimmerman and colleagues believe baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offer educational benefits.

“Parents are getting the message loud and clear from marketers of TV and videos that this is good for their kids. That it will help their brain development … None of this stuff has ever been proven,” Zimmerman said in a telephone interview.

It’s official: we are in a baby arms race (not really - racing the arms of babies would be creepy). Our baby-making rivals (you may remember them from this post) the Huttons have gone live with their baby-to-be website. He’s one-upped newplew.com with a baby countdown image from lillypie.com as well as parent bios, ultrasound images, and wedding pictures.

In an effort to keep up with the fetus-harboring Jonses, I’ve also added a lillypie countdown image and I’m preparing the equivelant of a newborn Star Wars program with some pretty cool features in the not-too-distant future that should keep us ahead of the Communist menac– er, the Huttons for at least a few weeks. Nothing like a good baby website rivalry to feed the Maternity-Internet (or is it Military-Industrial?) complex.

In other news - the Huttons are having a boy. Yay! Now our little girl will have someone to run away with in a few years. Keep your boy in check, Hutton!