iPad for toddlers Pros and Cons

[royi]

I've been hearing that there are many experts that are against giving toddlers and iPad to play with. I'm sure that if you let them spend hours and hours with it, it will be bad for them, however, I'm not sure what is the harm in letting them play with age appropriate toddler apps like (such as the BBC's teletubbies) for 15-30 minutes a day.

Am i missing something? is there a negative influence i'm not aware of?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I wonder how toddlers managed before 2010.

[Gordy]

I've been hearing that there are many experts that are against giving toddlers and iPad to play with. I'm sure that if you let them spend hours and hours with it, it will be bad for them, however, I'm not sure what is the harm in letting them play with age appropriate toddler apps like (such as the BBC's teletubbies) for 15-30 minutes a day.

Am i missing something? is there a negative influence i'm not aware of?

My kids love playing with mine or my wife's iPhones. I would say an ipod touch would be better for a toddler as it will easier for them to hold. There are some really great apps for helping them learn while playing too.

[[GSV]Trig]

My 4 year old loves my phone and tablet, the way I look at it she's going to grow up with touch interfaces and shes already plenty able to unlock, browse, fire up applications and watch videos..

[mark19632]

My 20 Month old loves the iPad, we have some nursey rhyme apps, some story apps and some that teach counting and writing.

She is able to grab it off the stand, unlock it , scroll to her page of apps and start them all up. She is better that my mum with it!

I can't see it being negative, only if we let her play with it for long periods and she normally prefers to run about anyway. I think it's a case of common sense and not letting them use it all the time.

[billythewiz]

I bought my family a Motorola Xoom (like an iPad, just cheaper but with more memory and higher res screen and camera).

The main problem is that all tablets are "personal", so there is no concept of multi-user. This means that if you set it up with your email/facebook/etc. then there is very little ability to hide, lock or password protect any of that. Once you have unlocked the tablet all of it is open.

If you do go for an Android device (which I would advise, especially if you are worried that your kids might break it), just make sure the "Market" app (now called Google Play), is up to date. I had a brief nightmare with my kids buying £16 worth of "Smurf Berries" !

You say "I'm sure that if you let them spend hours and hours with it, it will be bad for them". I'm not sure of that at all. Sure if you force them to use it for 16 - 20 hours a day, but if you let them stop when they want, it'll do no harm.

Restricting them to 15-20 minutes a day OTOH, will either mean they never develop an interest in it and after a few looks it will go un-used .... or, .... it will cause world war three and they kick up merry hell when you try to take it away after such a short time. Mind you, your reaction would be the same if someone restricted you to 15-20 minutes a day of say .... TV, internet, beer drinking !

[royi]

I wonder how toddlers managed before 2010.

well, once you introduce any new attraction/toy/food for the kids, there is no going back.
For example, last week, at the end of the dinner i gave the kids some ice cream, nothing special.
The next day, they were asking at the end of the dinner: "now, where is our ice cream?!" like it's the new status quo.

no going back...

(the did not get any more ice cream after that )

[royi]

If you do go for an Android device (which I would advise, especially if you are worried that your kids might break it), just make sure the "Market" app (now called Google Play), is up to date. I had a brief nightmare with my kids buying £16 worth of "Smurf Berries" !

Better remove my card details asap

[royi]

My 4 year old loves my phone and tablet, the way I look at it she's going to grow up with touch interfaces and shes already plenty able to unlock, browse, fire up applications and watch videos..

Any recommendations for good apps for toddler?

[smelly]

been about a year since i ventured into this part of the forum asking for advice on buggies. Anyway baby daughter is now nearly 15months old and she uses an ipad daily. In fact she keeps wanting to open cupboards, draws where we hide the damn thing in to get access to it.

http://digitalbabyblog.com/

Lady on the blog has viewed loads of apps for babies/toddlers and we ahve several of them already. The duck, moose ones (old McDonald, wheels on the bus etc).

if you have an adriod tablet there are similar apps but they seem less polished than the ipad ones.

[Blaineoliver]

I would be very worried about giving a toddler such an expensive piece of hardware. But I definitely can see how it will help their development.

[[GSV]Trig]

Found a downside the other week.

Daughters 4th birthday, got her one of those vtech kids camera's with a small screen on the back of it, her first time playing with it she was expecting the screen to be touch based and not button based, needless to say she wasnt all that impressed..

So bare in mind any tech you give the little'uns is setting a benchmark for them in later life

[royi]

Ended up using this apps or toddlers review site http://www.best-toddler-apps.org/. It has a list of top 10 toddler apps for ipad and iphone which i found to be useful. The apps for android section is too thin for my taste (even though it is not my problem ) but if you are also looking for android apps for toddlers, you need to find more sources. It may be that the google market or google play, I'm not sure what they call it these days, does not have many apps in this category.

[KaKTy3]

Our 2 and eight months old son uses iPad daily, has been for a while. He learnt colours, shapes, counting, object matching and other useful stuff using it. I've given up on ever trying to use it over a year ago (back to iPod Touch 1st gen then), but there is nothing obsessive about it: it's just lying around the flat, he picks it up a few times a day, plays a few apps he likes and then lets it be. It's also in-disposable for when we travel, as we have all the cartoons on it (Peppa Pig, Bubble Guppies, BabyTV, etc.).

Dozen of various apps here, but I can highly recommend anything that comes out of Duck Duck Moose Design. BabyTV (£2.5 subscription per month) is good for young ones too.

[Russ]

My 25 month old loves it, we got it when she was born and has practically grew up with iPads and iPhones. She uses it as if shes a teenager, casually one finger swiping through pages, opening folders and apps. only down side is she keeps putting her sticky fingers on the iMac screen to open stuff

[menthel]

My boy loves playing on iphones and ipads. The really wierd thing is that he loves the yellow submarine interactive book that was given away in the iBookstore recently. I worry for his future...