Throughout the last one year, I’ve bought several music CDs as well as VCDs for the little boy. I started with the Baby Einstein series but found that he didn’t enjoy them. I was quite disappointed because most parents’ feedback was that their babies enjoyed the series very much. I then decided to try something less gentle than the Baby Einstein series and moved on to the more animated Sesame Street shows. Even after 2 of those VCDs, he didn’t find them interesting enough to stay put for 5 whole minutes.
Nevertheless, while we travel in the car, we continue to play him his kiddie songs either on VCDs or music CDs. Though we play the VCDs in the car, he doesn’t watch them. Instead, he just listens to the songs and occassionally might just watch a little of what’s going on. I don’t quite mind that he doesn’t watch them in the car because I’ve heard that watching screens in a moving car is bad for our eyesight.
One thing about buying all these CDs is that you can’t test them out before you purchase. So it’s only by luck that you will find out if those are any good. I’ve had my fair share of buying CDs that I find inappropriate and thus a waste of money. Here are some of my stories on these wasteful buys.
We bought this rather scary one from the Singing Babies range. It was scary because the editors of those shows have super-imposed singing lips to the featured babies and they look odd and strange. If they look scary to adults, I can’t imagine what it does to a kid! Below is a picture of how the CD cover looks like. I bet you must have seen them around. They seem quite popular. Maybe we’re just the scady-cats?
I’ve also bought one that’s called “Wow! That’s What I Call Nursery Rhymes” (picture shown below) where on cover of the CD, it says the music are lively and filled with nice dances. I thought this would be good but as it turned out, it was too much of a hip-hop-cum-rapping music for not just baby’s ears, but ours too! But who knows, maybe given a few years from now, the little boy may just enjoy the lively music and dances.
Since these few experiences, I’ve decided to stick to buying Baby Genius’ CDs as they are safer bets. They are also what I consider to be value for money. When you purchase the VCD, it comes along with a music CD too. It costs a little more, at RM19.90 each compared to the other kiddie VCDs which cost from RM14.90 to RM15.90. But I’d rather pay a few more dollars and get both the VCD and CD.
The one range of VCD I’ve been looking for is the Veggie Tales series. It’s not easy to find them locally so if anyone has any idea where they are sold, I would appreciate if you can share with me.
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Have you tried ‘Your Baby Can Read’ CDs? I bought it for Hayley and she seems to enjoy it. But honestly they are quite boring but a friend of mine tested it on her kids and both her kids can read even before they were 1. She started them when they were 2 or 3 months old. Amazing.
That is really amazing, talk about starting young! I’ll be sure to look out for them and hope that the baby will take to them. Thanks for this!
Don’t know if you can find it elsewhere but I bought mine from www.mybbstore.com. RM99.90 for the entire set, 5 CDs. I remember going to all the kiddy stores in MV and elsewhere but they dont have it. It cost S$60 in SP so we’re cheaper here.
I read about your post in your blog. Each CD is only 15 minutes long? Must be the shortest clip to watch. But that seems about right, seeing how kids don’t have that long attention span. Thanks again for the info.