Are babies bad for most TV shows?

[TMC]

Do any of you agree that when a show introduces a baby to a show for a long term story line it is only to try to bring the ratings up, but it seems like it ultimately fails? The biggest problem is when you introduce a baby to a show, it changes what the show is about. And probably the worst is when they decide to write in an actresses' pregnancy instead of trying to hide it. And then there’s this baby that doesn’t fit into the show, that wasn’t planned to be apart of the storyline.

[DJM77]

I don't like it when a character has a baby on a show and then the baby ages about four years between seasons (e.g. Family Ties, Growing Pains).

[stevea]

Aging babies--soaps did that all the time. Amanda and Matthew on Another World are two I can think of. Amanda was an adult in a couple of years. And as was mentioned, Andy on Family Ties. In a year or two he's 4 or 5.

Probably the biggest problem with babies--and dogs--is unpredictability for the director. You never know what they'll do.

[Hawkee]

When you have sitcoms add babies as kids they usually are a sign that the sitcom is starting to slow down and adding babies results in low ratings but the sitcom rarely becomes cancelled. Take for example on Full House when it debuted Michelle Tanner was the cutest infant and with Mary-Kate And Ashley Olsen sharing the dual role of Michelle Tanner made them the darlings of sitcoms but then once Season 2 of Full House started airing Michelle Tanner like magic went straight from being a baby to a toddler and even though Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were possibly around 2 years old Michelle Tanner was possibly 4 years old when Full House premiered and had the producers of Full House had given Michelle Tanner more cute episodes as a baby that would've given them even bigger and better ratings. The same thing happened when Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky's twin sons were added to Full House and it seemed weird to see Nicky And Alex be just born and be adorable babies in their debut Full House episode then magically be toddler boys in the next episode and by speeding the aging process helped sitcoms film more episodes faster. A second show to use this technique was Growing Pains when Chrissy was added and when she was born she was a baby for two episodes and became a toddler in the next episodes and seeing how well babies worked on Full House Growing Pains wanted to cash in on the baby bandwagon. Family Matters also did this when it debuted when baby Richie was introduced and then Richie was no longer a baby but a toddler played by Bryton McClure who was around five years old. Aside from Andy from Family Ties and other child characters from sitcoms. The only babies who remained babies throughout the series run were Mabel from Mad About You and Emma from Friends. But whenever you add babies to sitcoms there's something wonderful in the air for the storylines of each sitcom
Bestie