Toddler Shows Ranked, Based Solely on the Plot

If there is one true thing about parenting, it’s that it rarely goes as planned. Our brain is constantly doing the mental gymnastics of just in case or next best thing. Maybe you wanted to breastfeed and the universe had other ideas. Or you said you were going to be the type of family that limits screen time, but you quickly realize that desperate times call for Daniel Tiger. Whatever the case, life with little ones often necessitates a plan B (or C or D). And what we’ve realized is that the alternatives—whether that’s food for your baby, affordable fashion, wholesome entertainment for your little one—can be just as good.

By Lauren Bell Martin

10. Hey Bear Sensory (YouTube)
This has no plot. Not a plot in sight. In this house, we just call it Dancing Fruit. It’s just fruit with cute little faces dancing on screen to, honestly, not terrible music. I’ve bopped along. I’m pretty sure it offers no significant benefit other than occupying your child for a solid five when you have to pee or get a phone call. Still important!

9. Ms. Rachel (YouTube, Netflix)
She is our linguistics teacher, my children’s second mom, and hopefully our president one day. Ms. Rachel provides not only pivotal education to our children, but also provokes endless discussion about her production value choices. Where did she get her clip art? Why is she directly using the green screen in this one? Oh, this one must be before she figured out the solid pink shirts and headband. While I would love some new content, I suppose we’re okay for now—god forbid the woman has a life and children of her own. The Potty Training Special was next-level song writing and production. It’s only up from here. 

8. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (Disney+)
The plot of most Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes rides the lines between neo-surrealist fable and watching Goofy figure out how to incorporate hot dogs into his everyday life. (We thought he was more of a pizza guy.) Since when has Goofy been into hot dogs? So much so that They Might Be Giants lent their talents to the “Hot Dog Song” that plays at the end of each episode, and in your head for the rest of your natural-born life. I am also happy they gave Pete the anti-hero arc. I think he’s had a tough life. 

7. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood (PBS Kids, Prime Video)
You might remember Daniel Tiger as a small puppet from the original Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. But now he’s a grown boy with somewhat serious anger issues and a fashionable French grandfather. I really appreciate the “strategy songs” to use in tough moments (“If you feel so mad that you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four” has been sung more times in my home than “Twinkle Twinkle”) and the simplicity of the town that offers free public transit via trolley.

6. Paw Patrol (Netflix)
This is a new one for us. I don’t even know how my daughter found out about Paw Patrol, but she asked to watch it and I obliged. I will say the puppies are cute and they do all work together to problem-solve and help their town. The one character I haven’t figured out is the mayor’s pet chicken, Chickaletta. Why? Her name sounds like something you’d get on a cold cut sub. All in all, I see the appeal of the show, and sometimes it’s just nice to see dogs employed and excelling in their respective fields.

5. Sesame Street (HBO Max, Netflix, PBS Kids)
Elmo. Big Bird. Oscar the Grouch, aka my king. A show stacked with icons and a soundtrack full of bops. Do yourself a favor and put on the modern version of “Letter of the Day.” Sesame Street is really the blueprint for kids’ TV shows and I love how they incorporate real-world topics in an easily digestible way. The only reasons that Sesame Street doesn’t rank higher for me are 1: Where the hell are Bert and Ernie (#BernieErasure) and 2: Cookie Monster and Gonger’s cooking, despite all their effort to gather fresh ingredients across the country, looks wholly unappetizing. 

4. Tumble Leaf (Prime Video) 
I’ll admit that I don’t honestly know what Tumble Leaf is about. A crab? A series of craft projects? A treasure chest that forces a series of adventures? A tiny inchworm named Stick? Regardless, the fluid stop-motion style and whimsical scenery would draw anyone in. And at least I know that when my daughter says something nonsensical like “Turkey shout, I figured it out,” it’s from Tumble Leaf. So even if I don’t know the plot, I know that it makes my daughter sound ridiculous and adorable. Five stars.

3. True and the Rainbow Kingdom (Netflix)
True has it all: a blue-haired, empowered female heroine, a kingdom ruled by a powerful and kind fool, a gentle approach to conflict resolution, and a bunch of “wishes” that are actually just differently shaped balls that can only say their stupid little names. They do an excellent job of demonstrating lessons of empathy, mindfulness, and courage, and I like to think there is also some deep social commentary buried underneath about the futility of wishing and cultural acceptance of Yetis. 

2. Frog and Toad (Apple TV)
This sweet show is based on the beloved books by Arnold Lobel. Frog and Toad focuses a lot on how to be a good friend and to show up for the people in your community. And, even though the author rejects the notion that Frog and Toad are together romantically, I believe they are deeply in love and just choose to live in separate houses for extra storage. They go on dates to eat soup! They “come out” for spring! They wear matching Christmas sweaters! I’m not going to force it, but there is definitely chemistry that looks a lot like L-O-V-E. I stan. 

1. Bluey (Disney+) 
Obviously! Bluey has the magical ability to entertain both kids and adults with its heartwarming focus on family fun and deep emotional lessons. Bandit and Chili Heeler really seem to have their shit together. There’s been many episodes (hello, “Baby Race”) that have offered me reassurance and guidance in my parenting journey. I don’t know if this is an Australian thing, but the imagination in this cute little house with an amazing backyard is off the charts. If I had the ability to create this many fantastical games for my children every day, I could rule the world.

Honorable mentions: Puffin Rock (Netflix), Trash Truck (Netflix), Yo Gabba Gabba (Apple TV), Storybots (Netflix), Cory Carson (Netflix)

Here are some of my MVDs (most valuable dupes)

One thing about me, I love a dupe. As a former style editor/boutique buyer, I had the curtain pulled back a long time ago. I saw how pricing and branding played such a huge role in the status and success of an item. A lot of “designer” goods are simply just your standard materials with a fancy presentation and big price tag. But with the growth of “quiet luxury”—defined by the complete absence of visible logos—it’s become easier to shop the look for less without anyone being the wiser. Dupes are also necessary for my current stage of motherhood, where I’ll pay more for a talking dinosaur than I will for my own underwear if it makes my kids happy. —LBM

Meet nurse and lactation consultant Olena S. Dobczansky, founder of The Partum Connection

There are many professionals that form your support circle in those first few precious, postpartum months. Maybe it’s your doula or your L&D nurse, your pelvic floor therapist or your new pediatrician. But for me, one of the most crucial caregivers in that time was my lactation consultant. We were lucky to have a wonderful, seasoned breastfeeding expert in the hospital where we gave birth, and also to have a holistic center close by that provided lactation support when we weren’t sure what the hell was going on with our son’s eating habits. 

That’s why the work that Olena S. Dobczansky does with The Partum Connection is so important. As a certified breast counselor, board-certified lactation consultant, and registered nurse, she looks at the entirety of the mother-baby experience, aka the dyad, when it comes to early feeding. She also features stories about lactation on her podcast, Syrup of Ipecac, which I was lucky enough to be a guest on recently. Here, she talks about how she got into the science of infant feeding, her own challenges with her babies, and what’s about to change in the field. —JM

How did you first get into the work of lactation consultancy?
I grew up the eldest daughter in a tight-knit, Ukrainian American family in New Jersey—three important associations about me. At 16, I took my first psychology class, and biology took a back seat. So, for most of my life, I have been interested in the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of people. Also, I fell in love with preparing and sharing food from a young age. I continued studying psychology in college, and when I went to graduate school, it became the foundation for my personal nursing philosophy. 

This is quite the windup, but most clinicians working in lactation have done so because of adverse personal experience. Others have had a great time nursing their own babies and want to spread the love. I worked with healthy babies for over a decade before becoming a CBC (certified breastfeeding counselor) and then an IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant). I supported and then subsequently cared for breastfeeding families for 15 years before I had my own children. 

For the layperson, what exactly is an IBCLC?
The IBCLC is a public health role. They are the public health clinician dedicated to breastfeeding—most people are involved in clinical lactation care, but the work extends to advocacy, policy work, research, and so much more. This is key, because there are many certifications available for laypeople to learn about lactation and breastfeeding. Breastfeeding support is not the same thing as clinical lactation care, and this is very poorly explained to the public. Another of my soapboxes.

What is the difference between lactation consultants you might have in the hospital versus one you go to in a private practice?
Most IBCLCs are registered nurses working in hospitals. This makes sense when you step back for a moment to consider the delivery system of healthcare in the U.S. Most babies are born in hospitals and that isn’t changing any time soon. Private-practice IBCLCs are essentially outside of the transitional healthcare infrastructure, which has been consolidating my entire life. The hospital dictates everything: when and who you care for, and how. Private practice is the total opposite; you are the business and the clinical and everything rests with you if you are the owner. Initiation of breastfeeding is what happens in the first days of life, and this is what is hopefully happening with hospital IBCLCs. After day three, it’s truly a whole ’nother world.

You had feeding challenges with your babies. How were you able to emotionally separate from that while caring for patients?
Like I said, I worked with breastfeeding patients for 15 years before I had my children back-to-back. Both of my kids, now 4 and 3, were born with posterior tongue ties during the pandemic. Having professional knowledge is one thing, but the visceral experience of having a baby and feeding from your body is something no credential can prepare you for. So it was as shocking as it is for anyone else to latch my daughter. I wanted it to work and the first six weeks were truly a blur. I breastfed my baby constantly. I knew something was wrong. It’s pretty much the exact same story you hear when there are challenges.

But you don’t get to choose your baby, they choose you. You try to do the best by them, with the knowledge you have with the time you’ve got. Just 17 months later, my son was supposed to be my redeemer baby, and he was more jacked-up than my daughter. Life isn’t fair, but the perinatal period has marketing now to sell you a dream of rainbows and butterflies. For some, the trials and tribulations start well before your baby gets here; for others they are rocked postpartum. It’s only through the fire can you be forged anew.

It is my job that gave me the skills needed to advocate for my own kids. But the reality—that my son nursed maybe 10 times in his life with me choosing to pump exclusively for six months with no break—is that none of that has anything to do with my patients. My patients have earned their story, and it is both a privilege and an honor to be a part of it and something I do not take lightly. 

What is about to change in the world of IBCLCs?
United Healthcare has already announced that, effective September 1, [IBCLCs] will not be compensated for the baby portion of the dyad. This effectively cuts earnings by 50 percent, despite the continued need to document, assess, and care for both the mother and the baby. The goal, in my opinion, is to disintegrate the existing IBCLCs and change who bills and gets paid for lactation care. 

My hot take: Doulas are moving in. They are being brought in by big money and I have huge concerns. Doulas are not clinicians; they are support people. But increasingly my colleagues and I have heard during prenatal consultations, “My doula is a lactation consultant.” The roles of nurse, lactation consultant, and doula are all important in the perinatal period, but they are not the same. 

What is another misunderstood thing about the work of lactation consultants?
I was in consultation with a lovely young couple and their 4-day-old when the mother asked me how I navigate a perceived bias for breastfeeding. Because this isn’t my first rodeo, I asked them to imagine someone asking a sports medicine physician: “How do you avoid being biased toward exercise?” Crickets!

The public often assumes our job is to convince people to breastfeed. Our expertise is the physiology of human lactation and the health behavior of breastfeeding and pumping. We evaluate how milk is being produced, transferred, regulated, and experienced. Sometimes the intervention is exclusive breastfeeding. Sometimes it’s pumping. Sometimes donor milk. Sometimes we use cow’s milk or goat’s milk formula. Often it’s a combination. Sometimes the healthiest outcome is weaning without guilt. The only bias I have is toward understanding how human lactation works, so families can make informed decisions. My goal is to elicit what the dyad needs and wants, and help them get there. 

“We were a mile into a walk when we realized we didn’t have our diaper bag. Prayers went up.” —JM

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