Are educational videos good for babies?

Even though there's an entire school of baby educational videos marketed

to stimulate babies' learning, the science behind those claims is about as
solid as the rice cereal you'll soon be serving your little one. In fact, these
products may do more harm than good by actually delaying language
development instead of beefing up brainpower, recent research has found.

One study looked at Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby DVDs and videos and
found that babies ages 8 to 16 months knew six to eight fewer words for
every hour per day spent watching these videos compared with tots who
weren't watching them. Why? Researchers believe that the excessive
screen time preempted valuable one-on-one time with their caregivers,
which is when babies best learn how to talk.

Other studies have found a connection between excessive TV viewing and

an increased risk for attention problems, obesity and poor school
performance in children later in life.

For these reasons, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) discourages

TV time altogether for babies under 2 years of age. And it doesn't matter
whether the show's educational or not. Research shows that educational
programming is only beneficial if a child can understand what's going on
on-screen, and little ones have a hard time grasping this before age 2.