The Michael Moore of the toddler world, Gregory Thomas exposes how the age zero to three market is a 20bn global industry and how big toy companies and TV networks produce so-called educational programmes merely to target the under threes, crucial in the 'cradle-tograve' advertising battles. First they create the TV series and then comes the merchandising, which covers everything from breakfast cereals right down to socks and underwear. You and I might think little Dora is great because she speaks a bit of Spanish but to the big players in the toy industry she is considered 'toyetic', ie she can make the leap from TV character to merchandising heaven. Take a stroll around your local Dunnes Stores and see the price difference in children's clothing when either Dora or Disney logos are on the items. And while you're at it take a look at tinned beans and spaghetti and see how a label with Barney or Bob the Builder adds significantly to the price, although not to the quality of the contents. And while there isn't a small child around who doesn't know Winnie the Pooh, very few know the character from the AA Milne books published in 1926 but rather from the logo on their pyjamas.

Cradle-to-grave marketing emerged in the mid-1990s and aims to achieve brand loyalty from almost the moment of birth, if not from conception, and it is estimated corporations whose marketing campaigns appeal to toddlers can expect to collect around 100,000 during their lifetime, starting with what is spent on the child in the early years and including what they in turn spend on their children in the future.

"Today's infants are crawling and toddling billboards for America's bigbrand names. Babies don't travel in plain old strollers; they ride in Maclarens, Graycos, or high-end Bugaboos. Their carseats have Eddie Bauer labels. Their nipples are Nuks, their bottles are Playtex or Avent. Their diapers are Huggies with Disney's Winnie the Pooh or Pampers with Sesame Street characters, " says Gregory Thomas, a business journalist, who maintains that by the time a child is 18 months old they are already aware of brands like Cheerios, McDonalds, Coke, Barbie and Disney.

"Marketing television as educational for pre-schoolers has become big business, " she says, explaining that Viacom, Nickelodeon's parent company, and the Disney Channel know many parents are wary of letting young children watch programmes that are of no educational value.

But Nickelodeon claims their programmes focus on developing multiple intelligences, including children's artistic and athletic abilities, and the Disney Channel claim their programmes are based on a "wholechild curriculum" promoting emotional, social and cognitive development, teaching pre-schoolers skills that will "help them become more rounded".

They also claim their programmes teach thinking skills, problem-solving, imagination and self-expression, ethical development, daily living skills and motor skills.

But looking into the research behind such claims, Gregory Thomas found the small children who were observed watching these 'educational' programmes didn't actually display any forms of creativity or self-expression. In fact they sat glued to the screen. But on replaying the tapes, the researchers (hired by Disney) observed one boy who was tapping his finger to the rhythm of the movement on screen. Therefore they could conclude that the Disney programmes had indeed resulted in active participation!

And while Teletubbieswas hailed as one of the few programmes deemed by the medical community to be appropriate for children aged six months to three years, in terms of the pace at which it moves, Gregory Thomas points out that no legitimate academic research ever showed Teletubbies was developmentally sound for babies or toddlers. At present, if you search Amazon. com, you will find as many as 750 videos and DVDs marketed as suitable for babies and toddlers.

What's refreshing about Buy Buy Baby, apart from its excellent research, is that author Susan Gregory Thomas isn't just a fanatical anti-TV person who believes children should be breastfed till they're 12, homeschooled till they're 18 and never eat sugar.

She lives in the real world. She is both a parent and is employed outside the home.

She admits she grew up eating TV dinners and watching lots of TV like most of her peers.

"But when Generation X parents say they grew up on TV as kids, they were right but what they weren't remembering accurately was that they were much older, developmentally speaking, than their babies and toddlers." She agrees Sesame Street, which was the first educational programme created for children and which grew out of 1960s idealism, had its good points. A major report on early education in the 1960s revealed large numbers of underprivileged children were at a huge disadvantage by the time they started school, as they had no exposure to anything creative, stimulating or educational. And with 97% of Americans owning a television at that time, it was felt a programme like Sesame Street could freely reach millions of poorer children.

However, she argues, backed up by research, programmes like Sesame Street were designed for pre-schoolers, which means four-year-olds, not babies and toddlers. And while most of us see toddlers and pre-schoolers as almost belonging to the same group, they are infact miles apart. According to Gregory Thomas, a 15year-old and a 55-year-old have much more in common developmentally than a four-year-old and an 18-month-old toddler. Again she provides the research to show that before the age of at least three, small children simply cannot process the way images are formed on a TV programme. Barney may say he's going out to play but if a toddler cannot see Barney actually walking out the door and down the steps to the garden, they 17cannot make the connection between the visual cuts and become completely overwhelmed.

But in our rush to give our children a headstart in life, and in an attempt to keep them happy and occupied from dawn till dusk, we fall for all the misinformation about products that will help our infants.

Gregory Thomas puts it down to the fact that many parents today belong to Generation X. And while our older Baby Boomer sisters struggled to climb the career ladder, we, apparently, aren't quite so eager to prove ourselves but desperately want our children to have the best education and the happiest lives money can buy . . . which is why we are all too willing to invest in anything, be it a toy or DVD, marketed as educational, as proven by the massive commercial success of Baby Einstein products.

Founded in 1997 by Julie AignerClarke, a 33-year-old stay-at-home mother, Baby Einstein was indeed unique, according to Gregory Thomas. "It's remarkable to think of it today but Aigner-Clarke was the first person to broker the merger of what now seems like two relatively obvious ideas: that a video or TV programme can be a good baby toy and that a well-designed toy might boost a baby's brain power. In a decade, this convergence has, perhaps permanently, transformed the everyday experiences of all but the most insulated children between the ages of zero and three, " she says, adding that Disney market research shows that 30% of American homes in which young children live own a Baby Einstein video/DVD, and three out of four pregnant women intend to buy Baby Einstein products because they believe them to be beneficial.

In past generations when parents bought Mickey Mouse clocks and watches, or Shirley Temple dolls, so popular during the 1930s, they knew they were just buying pretty gadgets children related to because of the cartoons or films they saw.

But in more recent years parents are being fooled into buying toys and DVDs on the promise of their educational and developmental worth.

Gregory Thomas calls it the 'baby genius phenomenon'. "The widely held notion that infants and toddlers can be made smarter via exposure to the right products and programmes has spread throughout the toy industry. Today, to be competitive in the baby and toddler business, a toymaker's products must encourage 'learning' . . . or at least claim that they do. The fastest-growing segment of the $3.2bn infant and pre-school toy business is represented by 'educational' products, which are advertised as stimulating babies' and toddlers' cognitive abilities.

"Indeed, the demand for such playthings has completely transformed the toy industry. It has helped catapult dotcom era start-ups such as Leap-Frog into the major leagues and drastically shifted the business strategies of longtime players such as Mattel's FisherPrice and Hasbro's Playskool."

Most parents pop in a DVD or turn on the TV, says Gregory Thomas, when they need to have a shower, make an important phone call or just get some housework done. And most readers will certainly relate to this. But she says we need to reassess the value of simply doing nothing. Babies and toddlers need stimulation for sure but they don't need it round the clock . . . and you can't keep them happy all day long.

She warns against the dangers of overscheduling and over-enrolling children, filling their days with endless music lessons, sports, ballet, pre-arranged play dates and so on. "Transient boredom, sadness and isolation. Such feelings are part of life and even very young children need opportunities to discover who they are and what they are capable of doing on their own. Doing nothing means that adults and their young children have periods of unstructured time when they can see what just unfolds. Doing nothing isn't mediated by television, classes, computers or educational toys. Doing nothing is going to the market to buy food for dinner. It's relaxing in the park or the backyard. Doing nothing isn't overthinking, it's just hanging out."