Saturday, April 14, 2012

M is for Movies

Facts about toddlers, preschoolers and the cinema.
Perfect Age: a little over 2 seems to work very well for us, although some parent websites says as late as 5, I have some friends who took their kid to the theatre when he was a little over 1...I'm not sure if I consider that brave, desperate or crazy.
When to watch: because we don't want to be rude parents, we always choose the first showing of the day...the earliest one...the one no teenager would ever go to...the one in which no dates will occur. I remember being 22 on a Friday night and parents would bring their kids to the movie. Heck, we were watching The Dark Knight at midnight and there was a baby...gar...I won't talk about the parenting skills, or lack thereof on that one, but honestly rudeness people, rudeness!
Preparation: Three adults per kid seems to work pretty well. Your kid can then go from lap to lap, snack to snack and you can situate it in such a way that 2 people are blocking the escape. Lila doesn't weigh enough to keep a seat down so I spent a lot of time pushing her back to the very back of the seat for balance and/or holding the seat down on the edge. We also watch some movies in the dark at home with surround sound.

What movies have we watched in the theatre?


We watched this in 3D.
She really liked the opening sequence with the castle.
"Mommy, did you see that? Wow!" I'll never forget it.
There's a whole cast song at the beginning and end that are just fabulous.
She now calls her tricycle her Lorax bike.

What kind of movies should you watch with your toddler?
Um, I'm only going by what I read on the interwebs and what I know to be true for my 2-year old girl. Take it for what you will. If there isn't action or music or dancing Lila gets bored and I mean crying, fussy "I want to go home now"...The Lorax is not as fast-paced as Beauty and the Beast...just so you know...

1] any movie you hype up (I can't tell you how many times we watched The Lorax trailer)
2] light-hearted movies
3] cartoons and singing over live-action
4] it seems that after 60 minutes...we're minutes away from total baby meltdown...thank goodness there was a song towards the end of The Lorax because Lila was getting bored.
5] know what scares your kiddo...I didn't think Lila Jane would like The Nightmare Before Christmas, but she really likes Sally and Jack and the music...it's kind of weird. This doesn't mean, I'm going to take her to Frankenweenie...dead pet that comes back to life like Frankenstein??? I don't think she'll like that at all!

What movies are Lila Jane's favorites?
Any with singing or animals of course! The Nightmare Before Christmas, Tangled, Aladdin, Puss in Boots (she doesn't really watch all of the last one, but she loves the kittens and the cat dancing at the G-litter Box and she loves Kitty Soft Paws, the other three she will sing to and we'll even do the actions sometimes!)

Article: Movies with Toddlers from What to Expect

3 comments:

  1. Last year it was so hot and my air conditioner wasn't working, so I took my 3 year-old and 1 year old to see the new Pooh movie. Never taking two little ones to the theater by myself again. Luckily Sam slept through the whole thing, and since it was a movie for such little ones, lots of kids were adding to the soundtrack.

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  2. Ha. I think the first movie I took my girls to when they were young was "Lady and the Tramp" and you know how long ago that was. Ha ha. I mean when it first came out ever. They are now 59 and nearly 56 years old with grandchildren the same age they were at the time. My husband called kids who went to the movies "little urinators" running up and down the aisles while the movie was going on. Ha ha ha. Best regards to you. Ruby

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  3. Too many cokes, Grammy! Hopping over from the A-Z Challenge in response to the U is for "Up" movie. Thanks for visiting. (I hate the volume level in most theaters).

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