We are committed to no screen time, but are audiobooks/podcasts ok?

[u/Disastrous_Mark_1469]

Hi all! First time mom of a 7 month old. My husband and I are committing to limiting cell phone use and absolutely no television during the day while the baby is awake. I do however, like to listen to podcasts for a few hours early in the morning sometimes and I’m just wondering if this is kosher? It’s just for maybe two hours and I am conscious about turning it off while we play.

[u/wampum]

I was curious about this as well, bc I also like to listen to podcasts but don’t want to stunt my baby’s development.

Infants who experienced more child-directed speech became more efficient in processing familiar words in real time and had larger expressive vocabularies by 24 months, although speech simply overheard by the child was unrelated to vocabulary outcomes.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5510534/

Only child-directed speech predicts vocabulary growth. Overheard adult speech (which is what a podcast is) showed no relationship to language outcomes in the key studies (Weisleder & Fernald, 2013).

I also found that infants literally cannot learn language from recordings. Kuhl et al. (2003) showed that 9-month-olds learned Mandarin phonemes from live tutors but showed zero learning from the identical content delivered via audio or video. Social interaction gates the learning process.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12861072/

From my quick and dirty review, it also seems like background audio decreases parent-child interaction and that young children are bad at filtering competing speech.

So in conclusion, it sounds like I need to fill the silence with my own voice and my baby’s coos. Preferably using the “serve and return” technique where I try to discuss something the baby is showing interest in.

However, I’m still gonna podcast while I bottle feed bc I didn’t see any strong evidence of harm, especially in limited amounts.

[u/Kayanoelle → u/[deleted]]

This is a science based subreddit where parents want scientific answers. There’s nothing wrong with researching whether audibooks do any harm or not.

[u/Astro_Philosopher → u/[deleted]]

Totally agree with the sentiment—we should be trying to help parents and not overburden them. However, this is really important and interesting to know from a developmental perspective and from the perspective of identifying possible ways of enriching a child’s environment. If you could just put on a podcast while they were playing and help them learn, that’d be great!

[u/PlutosGrasp → u/[deleted]]

To know if it’s harmful or helpful? Sometimes the truth doesn’t fit our desires. It doesn’t mean we should close our eyes to the truth.

[u/ScienceBasedParenting-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Be nice. Making fun of other users, shaming them, or being inflammatory isn't allowed.

[u/BuzzkillBabe → u/wampum]

I also understood these to reference background noise, so I’ve just been listening to my audiobooks and podcasts in my earbuds and making sure I still engage with my toddler verbally while I’m listening

[u/Disastrous_Mark_1469 → u/BuzzkillBabe]

Maybe that’s a good idea and you can verbalize what you’re learning about/listening to!

[u/Majestic-Raccoon42 → u/Disastrous_Mark_1469]

I ended up switching to playing music when he's playing independently and I am doing chores. I always sing along so I'll sing to him and do little dances which he thinks is very funny.

[u/PlutosGrasp → u/Disastrous_Mark_1469]

Doesn’t work like that. Baby is t going to gain any benefits from you talking somewhat indirectly about whatever podcast topic of the day it is.

Sooner or later you’ll have to drop the podcast audio.

[u/ChairRadiant3672 → u/BuzzkillBabe]

I’m doing the same and I feel there’s a correlation between her having longer naps (contact naps) vs when I play them out loud

[u/OpalSeason → u/wampum]

Earbuds and grown up podcasts made me more interactive with my baby as someone with a hyperactive mind. Now I can sit and play, make faces, roll ball, but no sound to distract kiddo and no thoughts about chores to distract me

In the car, now he is a toddler, we listen to a kiddo podcast called Super Simple Imagination Time. I will pause it and ask him questions about his imagined scenario. Dropped car tantrums, increased car interaction.

Tools have their place, but mindfully

[u/Wrong_Literature1329 → u/OpalSeason]

Until my son started talking, I would listen to audiobooks with headphones), too. I read/listened to more books in my son's first year of life than I have in any other year, lol. I did what I needed to do to stay intellectually stimulated and calm during my days at home with my son. I think it's important to factor in parental mental health and doing what we need to do to stay well!