Do you give your baby gadgets?
When our girls were around 6/7 months old they started to notice our iPhones. At first I saw no harm in allowing our girls to hold our phones and watch a video on it or simply play with it.
I’ve changed my mind now though and have asked people not to give their phones to the girls.
Why? Well because when they see my phone they ‘demand’ it and when I refuse to give it to them they get upset. Another good reason is that if one of them was playing with my phone, you’re guaranteed that a fight would break out within seconds between them both because they would both want to play with the phone.
More importantly though, I don’t want our girls glued to iPhones or iPads as they grow up. There’ll be plenty of time for that when they’re in their teens, but I think until then I would rather see them playing with their stacking blocks, shape sorters and other toys or be out in the fresh air.
My sister bought a case for her iPhone which is specifically designed for a baby/child to use. It protects the phone from damage and prevents the child from pressing buttons which allows them to watch videos and play apps etc on the phone. I guess some would argue that letting your little one watch a video on your phone is more or less the same as watching a DVD on a tv.
I remember watching a video a while back of a little girl playing with a magazine (or it might have been a book; I can’t quite remember), anyway the little girl didn’t know how to turn the page because she was used to playing on an iPad so she was trying to ‘slide’ the page as you would do on an iPad. I thought that was rather sad as our girls love looking at books and pointing at the pictures.
Do you let your toddler play with your iPhone or iPad? What do you think?
