How do I break my daughter of TV?

Your daughter is one year old, she really should not be watching any TV of any kind, educational or not. She is a baby and the first five years are the most formative and important. Personal interaction with your child is far more important, so get her interested. Reading to her can be a great time, buy or better yet make some puppets to go along with the book, act the plot out, use characters, change voices and intonation in your voice. Build a puppet show stand, better than a TV and you can both use your creativity while you paint and decorate. Children, esp. younger kids, love to get involved with any art project. Other ideas, have a pajama jumping party. Put on your jammies, put on a music CD, and bounce around adn dance, do this for about 10-15 minutes, then change music to slow soft music, and cool down in "slow motion". Then she'll be ready physically and cognitively For a bedtime story, crawl into bed together and read a book. At this age, she will want to hear the same bedtime book over and over again. Good luck to you. Enjoy this magical time with your baby.

She's 1. Just unplug the tv. Better that you do it now, while she can't complain and whine. It will be much harder if you end up with a 4 year old addicted to tv watching. And when you're trying to interest her in other stuff, remember: 1 year olds have very short attention spans. She's not likely to listen to you read a book more than 1 minute or even play with the same toy for longer than a minute or two. Just offer her plenty of different toys to choose from (a toy box she can access on her own is best) and sing songs with her here and there. Roll around on the floor with her...just anything that makes her happy at the moment. She's at an easy age for entertaining.

Sounds like you recognize this as a problem, which I think it is too. One year old is way too young to be a couch potato and addicted to TV. If there is a playroom you two could go to that does not have a TV in it, you could set up camp there and play. Try a myriad of toys, easy puzzles, blocks, stuffed animals, books, balls just about anything. If you have a portable CD player, bring that along and play kids music. That's exactly what my Wife and I did and our daughter really enjoyed it. TV for a one year old should be limited to somewhere between 0 hours and 1/2 hour. If you need a few minutes to do something where you need her still, that shouldn't be a problem, but I'd really limit that too. TV is a cancer on developing brains, contrary to what Disney and the folks at the baby Einstein division will lead you to believe.

Just tell her one show a day. Get her interest into the computer. I sure noggin has a web-sit with activities for her age. Buy her book from Characters from noggin. Try fingerpaint and art activities something that she will think is cooler than Tv.

Distract her with other activities, take her out for a stroll in the neighborhood. Give her toys to play with. Do more interacting activities instead of letting her just watch tv. And sure it's easier to let her watch tv but she's ur child don't let her be a couch potato already, and if it comes down to it get rid of the tv.

She's 1 and Noggin is stimulating her brain in ways that are difficult for you to reproduce. At this age, too much TV shouldn't be an issue as long as the shows are appropriate and you aren't ignoring her (which it sounds like you're not).

At 1 there's not much else that she can do and understand. Try taking her to the park or to the zoo or even to the mall when it's not too crowded. Find other ways to stimulate her brain and fire those neurons.

Believe it or not, she will eventually become board of the TV. I would become concerned if she was 2 or 3 and still 'LOVES' the tv as much as she does at 12 months.

My wife and I sometimes wish we could get our 3yr old to watch cartoons when we need him to. :o)

I also wanted to add that I'm not condoning TV in any way. As your daughter continues to grow, she'll become interested in other activities you introduce, slowing the TV watching process. Be careful of how much TV you watch as she will no doubt want to be just like mommy.

I disagree with about the Baby Eisenstein comment from another poster. My 3yr old learned how to count to 20, and his entire alphabet from watching educational DVD's.

I had the same problem with my toddler. We let her watch The Wiggles which encouraged her to dance all over the living room and one day she learned how to turn the TV on by herself which snowballed into her thinking she had to turn it on anytime it was off. I solved the problem by plugging the TV into a surge protector which I sat on top of the entertainment center. Flip the switch and the TV didn't turn on. She gave up after a few days of it not working when she pushed the button and now she actually brings me her DVD asking me to watch it instead of insisting on it herself.

remember who is the boss you or your 1 year old. My children learned how to turn the tv on so i put the tv up higher so they couldnt get near it. they get to watch tv a bit right now but soon there in kinder and childcare so they wont be around it much. the trick is not to turn it on and get her interested in other thigsd not just books, but maybe taking her to the park, or to playgroups

somehow make the tv unavailable to her except at certain times in the day when YOU say its ok. just tell her no if she asks and give her other options of things to do. she's one, she needs you to tell her no when its appropriate. she will probably always want to watch tv over reading or playing.. thats just how most kids are. she'll probably whine and cry for it but eventually she'll stop and realize playing or reading is more fun than crying.