Upsie Daisy is a character on the show "In The Night Garden" shown on CBeebies (Starhub Channel 303).
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| Igglepiggle & Upsie Daisy |
I have obviously never heard of such a show till my daughter turned 4 months and my mother-in-law felt the need to have some form of entertainment for my baby. We have a TV in every room of the house like most Singaporeans do since it's our top form of entertainment we turn to (other than the internet that is) and so it made sense to the in-laws to subscribe to the kids channels for Baby J.
It still amazes me how my baby already has a preference for certain things at such a young age. Just like how she prefers butterflies to frogs and cars to trucks, Baby J showed a love for In The Night Garden over other baby programmes.
Here are 3 reasons why I think babies love it so much:
1) Evolutionary Psychology
According to one of my psychology textbooks, Evolutionary Psychology is the application of Darwin's principle of natural selection to individual behavior, i.e. it studies how biology and environment interacts to form behavior and development in humans (Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W. & Feldman, R. D. (2004). Human Development. McGraw Hill).
Simply put, innate behaviors were believed to result from a need to survive and pass on their genes.
My evolution psychology professor even went as far as to say that this was probably why we think objects with a large, round head and big eyes are cute. Like these famous cartoon characters.
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| Iconic Cartoon Characters |
Have you ever wonder why you would think they are cute? Why women especially would think they are cute?
According to my professor, we are conditioned to find round big heads and eyes lovable because that's how our babies look! Babies have heads that are unproportionately one third the size of their entire body and eyes the size of walnuts. They have to be that way to survive or you'll throw them right out with their constant screaming and demands. The cuteness messes with your brain and makes you think all is worth it for that ultra sweet smile.
Babies are therefore also born with the same liking for round big head stuff like themselves. Well, at least in my opinion.
2) Repetitive & Easy to Make Sounds
Literally, each character says only 2 phrases in different intonation to convey their feelings. Upsie Daisy only says 'upsie daisy' and 'tinky do' throughout the whole show and somehow that alone fascinates Baby J.
When Upsie Daisy is surprised, she says, "Upsie daisy?!" When angry, "UPSIE DAISY!!" When confused, "upsie daisy??" When sad, "upsiee daisyyy......." When happy, "upSIE daiSY!!"
As you can see, I'm very relunctant to let her watch this in the long term. I wouldn't want her to walk around with only a double word vocabulary.
3) Colourful
All babies love colour. Possibly because they lived the beginning of their lives in a very dark place so now that they are surrounded with colours, it catches their attention right away. Although babies can see colour at birth, the colours tend to come together as one, which is why they prefer to look at things that are black or white when they are newborns. As they grow older, their eyesight gets better and better. It's like a colour-blind person seeing colour for the first time. "Wow!" is probably what goes through their mind.
Anyway no matter the reason, it's interesting to note that we love what we love from birth. We are who we are, so don't let others say anything to make you forget that.
In other news, I've been featured at The Savvy Mummy's blog. If you are joining us for the first time, a warm welcome to you! =)
