When in doubt sky station 623 (Baby TV)

Member Name: oioiyou

Product:	Baby TV
Date:	01/09/09 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: commercial free and 24 hours a day, aids in development!

Disadvantages: It's addictive even for me!

I seem to be reviewing a lot of things to do with my children at the moment. Maybe one of these days I'll do something adult!

My youngest has his top teeth coming through and since they started their descent he has been waking up every night around midnight for a cuddle. I'm a zombie at that point, trying my best to keep my eyes open. I decided the other night to try and make life a bit easier and put the tele on for a little bit and see if that would help pacify him. Whenever the baby watches anything other than Peppa Pig its Baby TV so I popped that on in the hope that something would be on. Thankfully the station was still running and had something on that was geared at making babies sleepy. A mix of calming pictures and sounds. It was even memorizing to my other half and I. They run this calming show all night every night. Good to know when the babies wake up and won't go back to sleep.

Programmes:
Activities
First Concepts
Guessing Games
Music & Art
Nature & Animals
Bedtime
Imagination & Creativity

Each area has a number of different shows. Most of them are just like any other childrens station show just a bit slower but some are quite trippy. You will randomly come across shows that are a bazaar mix of swirling colours and then the odd animal will go by and it does seem like the animators were on drugs at the time of production! If you need an example try this one: http://www.babytv.com/moon.aspx?cid=16 , it's a bit from the Bedtime show.

The shows are short so they manage to keep a young chills short attention span and to add to that are completely commercial free! I had wondered why some shows were shown again with in a short period of time but it has to do with learning via repetition and that with every viewing more information is taken in.

One show is called baby chef and although I do no cooking really with the baby (unless I'm holding him whilst making dinner) he finds it pretty amusing.

The station itself is broadcast in over 85 different countries in 14 different languages.

The Baby TV website has a games section which the baby hasn't a clue about. He just sits there hitting the keyboard and dribbling on the mouse. My elder lad has given some of it a go and says it's ok but maybe best for 3 year olds. To be honest I think he secretly had a bit of fun!

On the net I went via the birthday button and created a little birthday show using a picture of my little man. It was very cute and he clapped at it. Saved it to the computer to show daddy after work.

Sometimes I find myself at a baby playgroup and I'm the only one who doesn't know all the words to some nursery rhymes! Especially because sometimes American and English rhymes have slightly different wording. Thankfully for confused mummies like me the website has some lyrics written up for us.

Colouring pages! Yay! http://www.babytv.com/Downloads-Coloring-Images.as px

There's another good baby station to give a go and that one is http://www.babyfirsttv.com/uk/index_plst2.htm , this one has colour-coded flowers at the corner of the screen to let parents know what area of learning is happening via that particular show and is also run 24 hours a day.

Quick run down:
Thinking Journey
Numbers parade
Sensory Wonderland
Language Playground
Imagination Lane
Rainbow Dreams
Feelings Garden


© oioiyou 2009

Summary: A good aid to getting baby back to sleep or give me a little break in the day!