There are several DVD series and individual DVDs out there that may attract those parents who are interested in raising their child in two or more languages: Bilingual Baby, Baby Einstein: Language Nursery, Brainy Baby...
As I searched through them, I found that Baby Einstein producers do not claim that your baby will learn any foreign languages with their DVD, but instead suggest that hearing foreign languages stimulates baby's development. That's a great fact! Every kid could benefit from some international lullabies. Sasha has been taking happy naps with Putumayo Kids Dreamland CD since he was 2 months old.
On the other hand, there are series Bilingual Baby and Brainy Baby which aim at a very young population (Bilingual Baby is recommended for 1 to 5 years old and Brainy Baby language videos are recommended for 2 to 5 years old) introduce children to as many as 40-60 words and sentences in a foreign language and claim that they are a great choice for raising your kid bilingual.
First, 60 words is nothing for any language. Studies quoted in the book that I am currently reading (Raising a bilingual child by Barbara Zurer Pearson, PhD) suggest that children acquire as many as 14,000 words in their native language by the age 5. Here is my suggestion: go to your kitchen and count all different types of food, including types of meat and poultry, different vegetables and fruits, dairy products and drinks that you offer your 10 month old baby on a regular basis. I can name about 30 different words. Now, all Sasha's toys, his daily routines, types of clothes... The words quickly add up. So, really, exposing a child to 60 words is nothing.
And what is even more important is that studies that used Baby Einstein Wordsworth DVD showed that babies did not acquire new words from DVDs. It does not even matter if we are talking about the second language or the first. Studies show that babies acquire words from live interaction with adults. That means that that time that a baby spends in front of a DVD player is a time stolen from real communication with her parents. Real communication means that a child is being directly addressed and that messages she hears are about objects and happenings around her. She can touch objects, munch on them, smell them.
At the end, if I want to invest in my child's language development (bilingual or monolingual), I should invest my time. DVDs won't help.
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