Too much tube time for baby?

I have a fabulous nanny during the workweek. Both my girls adore her, she comes to our house, and she’s bilingual! OK, so I’m talking about the nearly daily dose of Dora that occupies my girls in the mornings while I get ready for work. I confess that I’m guilty of turning on the television or popping in a DVD in order to distract my girls while I try to work from home, especially with the heat wave we had in Nashville this summer preventing us from quality backyard play time. Not surprising, two studies released this year have found that both television and so-called educational DVDs for babies can be detrimental to a child's development. I don’t know about you, but when I first introduced my girls to Baby Einstein videos as infants, it was out of a purely selfish need for a mental-health break, not to mention personal hygiene, as I was one missed shower shy of looking like a homeless person. A study released earlier this month purports that watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence. The link was established by a study of the habits and behaviors of more than 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March 1973. The children, aged 5 to 11, watched an average of 2.05 hours of weekday television. From age 13 to 15, time spent in front of the tube rose to an average of 3.1 hours a day. Another recent study published in the Journal of Pediatrics said that many educational DVDs marketed toward infants, such as Brainy Baby or Baby Einstein, may actually hinder language development. Do parents really buy so-called “educational” baby DVDs thinking that they are really more beneficial than one-on-one stimulation such as sitting down to play blocks or curling up to read with them? As a busy working mom, kiddie videos and TV shows have been lifesavers when I've needed to distract the girls during a conference call, not to mention portable DVD players are wonderful for long road trips or sick days. But like anything, I think moderation is the key. I’ve made an effort to replace TV time at our house with reading time, art projects and just turning on some fun music. But I’ll admit it’s nice to know that Dora is Tivo’d just in case I need her.