Baby Einstein

Rating:
Summary: Pleased with Einstein
Review: My son of 18 months has been watching these videos since he was 2 months old. At that young age, the music kept him content. We have the entire series and he has enjoyed every video. Now that he's a little older he especially likes the Shakespeare and Van Gogh videos. He laughs at the puppets and enjoys watching the children in the videos. These two videos are especially colorful and artistic. We recently purchased the newest Baby Dolittle video and found our last trip to the zoo to be even more enjoyable as he pointed out animals he recognized from the video.

We look forward to the next Baby Einstein video!!

Rating:
Summary: He Loves It!
Review: This video is the absolute favorite of our little boy. We received Baby Einstein as a gift, and were skeptical of its claim to be developmental or educational, mostly because we were not sure that a video for infants could be educational. Our opinions were soon rendered irrelevant by our boy's fixation with the film. He loves it! When he was about four months old, we started letting him watch it, and from the first moment he was enthralled. From the first viewing onward, he watched every moment, including the introduction at the beginning and explanation at the end, with rapt attention. It annoys him if we move across his path of vision while he's watching Baby Einstein. When he's upset it calms him down. When his Mom needs to do something, like take a shower or put in a load of laundry, this video keeps him entertained. We did not choose Baby Einstein, our little boy did. We're not sure whether the theories about keeping his mind and tongue open to the learning of foreign languages are correct, but everything in this video and all of the videos of the series seems wholesome and potentially developmental to us. In short, he loves it, and we think that the content can only help his development. He is totally disinterested in any "adult" video like movies we watch on the VCR, but he adores his Baby Einstein. We recommend it without reservation, and are now owners of all the videos in the series.

Rating:
Summary: more hype than substance
Review: i bought the complete set, all the dvds and flash cards. i was disappointed. the only thing worth watching at all was the theatre. but before you can get to that. it goes through a very long and arduous introduction period. i always have to manually skip this whole section, C'mon i know this is the baby einstein company, but damn can we just get to the program..

Rating:
Summary: Quite disappointing at best!
Review: Our daughter spoke her first 2 real words at the tender age of 5 months, and ever since then she has not looked back.

As you can imagine I was thrilled when I saw this video, along with Baby Mozart. We had worked a lot with playing different kinds of classical music to her, while in the womb, so I bought them both without hessitating.

However, the idea of the videos might be sound, but the content or rather the execution of those videos simply leave you with a lot to ask for. There are days when our daughter is scared when you put them on, but on most days she is simply not interested at all. And I can understand why. The quality of the video, is what you could have made yourself in an afternoon with your home video equipment and a few of your child's toys. For that I think they were quite pricey, not even considering the uninteresting contents.

By now we, as parents, have a good idea of what toys not just interest our daughter, but also stimulate her learning and exploring. This simply just doesn't have what it takes. You suspect a cynical business man behind it all, that wants to milk a few bucks off the whole movement of progressive learning. So take our advice, and save yourself a disappointment. If you want me to elaborate on this, you are welcome to e-mail me ([e-mail]).

Rating:
Summary: not as good as baby mozart or bach
Review: this video is a lot more boring than baby mozart or bach, because those have music and this does not. this one is just voice-overs in different languages and doesn't hold our child's attention as much. if you really think hearing all the different languages as an infant will make your child smarter later, go ahead, otherwise I thought the musical ones were much more interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed in this one...
Review: I bought Baby Einstein for my 9-month-old and was very disappointed with it -- it's going back to the store in exchange for Baby Mozart! My daughter has Baby Bach and loves it, all the music and sounds and activity really fascinate her, so I had high hopes for the Baby Einstein video. But we found that the extremely slow pace, lack of music, and simplistic images in Baby Einstein were boring to her. I suppose it depends on your child's personality, and it might be great for younger babies, but our active girl wasn't interested at all.

Rating:
Summary: Great, But Spare the Self Promotion
Review: I agree with other positive reviews -- our son has been watching this video off and on since he was 3 months (he's now 17 months) and still really enjoys it. However, my wife and I and others we know are both annoyed and disturbed by Aigner-Clark's pitch at the end. First she puts her young daugher on camera and badgers her until she performs a "peek-a-boo" trick. She even "fixes" her young girl's hair as if preparing her for a Holywood audition -- not a message we want our son to absorb. It feels weird and exploitive and adds nothing of substance to the video. And the next part -- an explaination of how to view the video and the thinking behind it -- is useful but also feels self-promotional. We suggest sticking close by and pressing the "stop" button before its tacky and somewhat disturbing epilogue.

Rating:
Summary: 30 minutes of baby entertainment
Review: My 3 month old gets a lot of pleasure out of watching this little video. No matter what her mood, I can always count on this video to entertain her for 30 minutes. This is great when I want to take a shower or eat dinner with the hubby. It totally looks homemade, but who cares? The video is not for my entertainment! Baby seems totally intrigued, and that's the goal here.

Rating:
Summary: For older babies
Review: I have to agree with the most recent review. This video was my least favorite of the entire series. Julie Clark has chosen to mark this video from birth to eighteen months, but I disagree. My son did not take interest in this video until 9 months. He is now nineteen months and his interest in it has grown as he has gotten older. Although I consider Julie Clark a brillant woman for creating this video series, I think she should have used a professional voice-over for the American segments rather than her own voice. Her voice lacks "umph" and comes across as boring and unstimulating. The other voices in this video, although none of them are professional voice artists, are at least soothing and stimulating to the ear.

Rating:
Summary: Baby Mozart, Baby Bach, and Baby Shakespeare are better
Review: I will be honest. Our son loves Baby Mozart, Baby Bach, and Baby Shakespeare. The music on them is delightful and the videography is great. The toys and objects are shot in such a way that they get a baby's and toddler's attention. But, I find that they are not as mesmerizing as the Barney, Elmo, etc. TV stuff is.

Now, for Baby Einstein. The concept is good, but in execution, it didn't work for our son. Listening to moms speak in a dozen languages bored our son. And the videography is not well done, so the images don't get a child's attention. This was the first tape in the series; the others are far better. We ended up consigning this tape. But, I am about to buy the new Baby Van Gogh, so I really do like the products from this company--just not this particular tape.