It was only around his second birthday back in February that Caspian started showing an interest in TV and children’s shows. He liked certain animated nursery rhymes on YouTube but they rarely kept his attention for long.  Not that I’m a fan of using the TV as a babysitter but we all know that it can be useful in buying you five minutes of peace and quiet and I do think toddlers learn a lot (good and bad!) from some of these shows. Caspian now knows to count to 20 and he is very interested in colours as well as learning the alphabet. I’m sure he’s picked up a lot of this from the shows he watches along with the books we read together.

WHEN PRONUNCIATION GOES A BIT WRONG

I try and also introduce Danish children’s programmes and of course learning two languages will naturally mean that both take a bit longer to master. A big hit has been a classic tale about a big yellow bear and his best friend, a chicken. It’s been around since my childhood but brought just as many giggles to Caspian as it did me growing up. It’s strangely enough not particularly politically correct with the bear being very bossy, though it makes it enjoyable to watch as a parent, too.

As Caspian’s speech is developing we’ve noticed that he hasn’t quite mastered S’s, F’s and L’s yet. This leads to some funny pronunciations at times and yellow is currently yerrow and five is hive. Though one of the funnier ones has to be the way he pronounces some of these well-known children’s characters.  Tele Tubbies are now known as Tole Toddies in our house and his most recent obsession, Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, is Baby Hoddy and sometimes Peppa Hoddy. Poor Daddy Long Legs spent ages searching YouTube for what he thought was Baby Hardy as Caspian stood beside him waiting impatiently.

It can be hard to correct it because it sounds so sweet and this phase only lasts a short while, so, for now, we’re watching Tole Toddies and Peppa Hoddy with glee.

WHAT OTHER TODDLERS HAVE SAID

Has your child ever mispronounced anything that made you giggle? I put it to the blogging community to see what their kids have been calling famous cartoon characters and naturally some really peculiar ones came up. From Peppa Pig to Paw Patrol here’s a few you might not have heard before…

“When my little girl was 2 she called Peppa Pig – Bobby. Then it transitioned to Bobby Pig!” Sarah, Whimsical Mumblings

“We had Heppa Hig for a while for Peppa, and now she’s obsessed with the robot episode of Ben and Holly and calls him Rideow” Jenna , Then There Were Three

“We have Pecker Pig in this house” Emma, Ready Freddie Go

The popular Mr Tumble goes by a fair few names, too, it seems…

“My son called Mr Tumble Mr Fumble for ages! Made me laugh every time!” Laura, Five Little Doves

“Mr Tumble is Bubble is our house!” Laura, Edinburgh With Kids 

It can sometimes be hard to figure out who the toddlers are actually referring to.  Kate’s son from Les Be Mums was struggling with colourful Twirlywoos:“T says “Ler-loo’s” for Twirlywoos. So cute!” and Sophie from Sophie and Lilly took some time to understand that: “A-Door translates as CBeebie’s Magic Door. Took me a while to figure that one out!”

“My son used to always say iggle iggle instead of piggle. Used to make me chuckle.” Emma, Me & B Make Tea

“M is still convinced it’s Tebby Tubbies” Maria, Suburban Mum

Kaiden’s son has come up with these brilliant takes on loveable character “Duck” (Twirlywoos), “Ta Jer” (Tom and Jerry) and “Pee Pee” (Peppa Pig)

Jenni from Chilling with Lucas could get into trouble when out and about if her son is either hungry or spots the heroic puppies: “My 2 year old says ‘arshhole‘ for sausage roll and Paw Patrol” 

Where Laura from Mama, Eden and Me is a little safer with: “Raw Roll is Paw Patrol in our house.”

The increasingly popular Minions seems to bring about a challenge, too.

“My two-year-old calls the Minions Baba Nanas. I think she is calling them baby bananas!” Kirsty from Winnettes.

“For us Minions are Amiss, no idea why” Azaria from Being Mrs Lynch.

I’m with Eva from Captain Bobcat that sometimes the long complicated names can be tricky even for us adults: “We have “tubby tubbies”, “zinzoollas” “mr boom”
But to be honest, a lot of them have such complicated and long names!”

And lastly Neil from Progressive Family Food felt somewhat inferior to the ever lovable Duggee of CBeebies fame: “On numerous occasions I felt incredibly loved by my 2-year-old when she came to me and exclaimed “Daddy!!” with joy lighting up her face…. only to realise that she was actually asking me to turn on Hey “Duggee” on the tv…..”

It’s not just children’s characters that can cause problems. Laura from The Mamma Fairy has to be careful not to let her nearly 2-year-old tell people what Daddy does for a living “My husband works in construction so some of the mispronounced machines are hilarious. My fav is forklift but it sounds like “f**k it” by my almost 2-year-old”. Plus Kaileigh from Little B & Me needs to watch one when her son spots a car “My son says wankaaa… for one car. Shoot that wanker was one of my favourite phrases he’s said.  He meant shoot that one car.”