Do we really need another line of baby videos?

I’m sitting at the Local over lunch hour with two guys from New York who are trying to convince me that yes, we really, really do. I’d like to tell you they flew to Minneapolis to court Cribsheet. But no, they’re here for a much bigger target. Uhm, yes, Target.

Stephen Gass is the creative one, a child psychologist who’s worked for the Sesame Street theme park, CBS and Viacom, among others. The one in the open-necked shirt. Don Burton is the business guy, with the Harvard MBA and Goldman Sachs and McKinsey on his resume. The one in the suit. They were friends in college and now they’re the proud daddies of eebee’s adventures, a DVD set for babies aged 8 to 24 months.

Some of you may already have stumbled upon the orange-faced baby puppet with puppy-dog eyes and what looks like purple multi-color-tipped dreadlocks on pay-per-view. Pretty soon, it may be tough to escape eebee - Barnes and Noble is going to start selling the DVD’s and dolls sometimes this year and a whole line of toys are in development. I’ve seen the black duffel bag full of samples so I can vouch for this.

So. The question must be asked. Just how is eebee different from Baby Einstein?

“The world view of a six-month-old is not filled with wild creatures, undersea creatures…or seasons. A baby doesn’t understand voice-over!” Gass says. “A baby’s world is filled with lights and shadows and water and balls. They are interacting with the physical world.” Or as Burton puts it, “We want to be the Elmo for infants.”

Accordingly, eebee stays in his playroom, exploring balls and ramps and a “pillow mountain” and even a flashlight.

You know of course, I tell them, that parents have a love-hate relationship with DVD’s. We hate the idea of tv as babysitter, but without it, we’d never get the clothes folded, dinner ready or any e-mail sent. Isn’t a DVD of a dreadlocked puppet playing with everyday objects just a sorry substitute for parents actually playing with their babies?

“This one is different,” says Gass. “It’s about doing. It’s not about my child knowing every animal in the kingdom. The younger they are, the more reality. That’s why they love your purse, and your necklace.” Plus, he adds, “it gets you your 10 minutes.”

I liked these guys, I really did. What they said made sense. I especially liked some of the prototypes of books they fished out of the duffel bag, with their moveable, slideable parts and - oops! that’s all I’m allowed to say. I liked that they needed help figuring out how to find a cab in downtown Minneapolis. And who among us hasn’t dreamt of chucking their day job and creating the next big baby product, the next, dare I say it, Baby Einstein.

But I don’t know. It’s been a month since they overnighted the DVD’s to me and I have yet to test-market them on the 19-month-old. She’s been too busy playing outside. With a real ball in a real yard. On real grass.

Do your babies watch TV/DVDs? Which shows?

(Here’s Newsweek on a Journal of Pediatrics study involving baby tv…”Baby Brain Drain“)

This Nebraska mom was back on the bench cheering on her basketball team 5 hours after giving birth to baby Isaac. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2953467

(I think it took me 5 hours just to walk down the hallway from the delivery room to the recovery room…or at least it felt that way)

Last week I kept getting asked if I had seen the “crying baby” episode of Oprah. A co-worker brought in a video tape, a few friends e-mailed me about it, and then we were at the grocery store and Ben began to fuss. An elderly woman urgently grabbed my arm and said “Did you see Oprah on Monday about the crying babies? Fascinating.”

OK OK I broke down - I’ll watch the Oprah segment!

The guest was Priscilla Dunstan who has a photographic memory for sound. She claims to have unlocked the secret to understanding what newborn babies need through the 5 universal sounds they make during their “pre-cry”  from 0-3 months. She said the key is listening for the sounds they make before the cry escalates and that will clue the parents in to what the baby wants. Neh-Owh-Heh-Eair-Eh No, Ben didn’t just throw his sippy cup at my keyboard, these are the 5 magic “words” Dunstan says will help you better understand what your baby needs.

Neh = I’m hungry

Owh = I’m Sleepy

Heh = I’m Experiencing Discomfort

Eair = I have lower gas

Eh = I Need to Burp

She did the experiment with a set of crying newborns on the show, and it appeared to work like a charm.

When I was in the hospital, one of the nurses said. “There are only so many reasons a baby cries, and you just have to use the process of elimination to figure out what is wrong.” Hungry, wet, tired, gas, comfort. If Dunstan is correct in her theory it would definately help a parent cut to the chase when their baby cries.

I’m all for anything that helps you navigate through the first few foggy months of parenthood. But when it comes right down to it what is important is that the parent’s are paying attention to the baby and attentive to it’s needs.

Did you see the show or has anyone put her theory into practice - what do you think?  

To read more about the Oprah segment and see video/audio of the different cries.  Click Here

Last week I kept getting asked if I had seen the “crying baby” episode of Oprah. A co-worker brought in a video tape, a few friends e-mailed me about it, and then we were at the grocery store and Ben began to fuss. An elderly woman urgently grabbed my arm and said “Did you see Oprah on Monday about the crying babies? Fascinating.”

OK OK I broke down - I’ll watch the Oprah segment!

The guest was Priscilla Dunstan who has a photographic memory for sound. She claims to have unlocked the secret to understanding what newborn babies need through the 5 universal sounds they make during their “pre-cry”  from 0-3 months. She said the key is listening for the sounds they make before the cry escalates and that will clue the parents in to what the baby wants. Neh-Owh-Heh-Eair-Eh No, Ben didn’t just throw his sippy cup at my keyboard, these are the 5 magic “words” Dunstan says will help you better understand what your baby needs.

Neh = I’m hungry

Owh = I’m Sleepy

Heh = I’m Experiencing Discomfort

Eair = I have lower gas

Eh = I Need to Burp

She did the experiment with a set of crying newborns on the show, and it appeared to work like a charm.

When I was in the hospital, one of the nurses said. “There are only so many reasons a baby cries, and you just have to use the process of elimination to figure out what is wrong.” Hungry, wet, tired, gas, comfort. If Dunstan is correct in her theory it would definately help a parent cut to the chase when their baby cries.

I’m all for anything that helps you navigate through the first few foggy months of parenthood. But when it comes right down to it what is important is that the parent’s are paying attention to the baby and attentive to it’s needs.

Did you see the show or has anyone put her theory into practice - what do you think?  

To read more about the Oprah segment and see video/audio of the different cries.  Click Here

As promised, I’m continuing to share some vintage Sesame Street segments in honor of the Sesame Street Old School DVD Box Set release. I should note - I don’t know if these clips are going to be included in the DVD, they are just some old faves of mine.

Baldies beware! This was tops on my list of all the Sesame Street “painter segments.” 8!

Before he was Bentley - the neighbor on “the Jeffersons”  Paul Benedict was well known with the toddler set as “the Painter.” Much later in his career he was mistaken for “Guffman” in one of my personal favorite movies “Waiting for Guffman.”

Another celebrity mention should be the pre-Rizzo *, pre-West Wing, umbrella holding Stockard Channing in the “4″ episode.

* my Grease sidenote: It always did bug me that Stockard really was old enough to be Danny Zuko’s mother in the movie. (34) She and Olivia N.J.(30) already had their “laugh lines” …so not teenagers.