I'm sure some mums use it like this but you'd never catch me doing it
<hovers around with the remote>
DS went through a (thankfully short) stage recently of waking me at between 4 and 4-45 - I used to count the minutes until 6am.

I used to feel guilty about this all the time but my ds does plenty of other things too i.e playgroup, out playing with friends, out and about with me. As long as their day is varied doing other stuff, watching tv at the end of the day or when you're trying to get stuff done is no bad thing. I let ds watch tv a lot yesterday afternoon as it was too hot for him outside and he just wanted to stay in and chill out.

And the best thing is that once they grow out of it there's CBBC, which actually has some good cartoons and Dick and Dom

Madremia09 do not feel guilty whatsoever. During bad weather here I'd plop them in front of Beebies and bugger off to the computer to surf the web about "noble" things like country crafts such as beekeeping and gardening.

In Germany kids now have an annual check up - is that the same in UK? The Paediatrician (Kinderarzt) asked me how much TV they watch as one of the questions in a questionnaire, and recommended that they only watch half an hour a day (I squirmed with embarrassment there). So now I've set the timer on the sat receiver to go off in 30 minutes no matter what is on, so no arguing. It just switches itself off! No more arguments about "Can we watch the end of Mr Maker?" Job done and problem solved!

But if Bob the Builder comes on I'll sit by and erm, check it doesn't get too violent.

DD was about 3, DS was younger but he just copied his big sister. At 17 months he only ever watches for a few minutes at a time, his sister (4) has been known to sit for an hour

Sorry to hi-jack thread, but at what age were your LOs when they actually were able to sit still enough to watch CBeebies for longer than 5 minutes at a stretch? For 15 minutes at a stretch and longer?

erm no cbeebies is NOT a lifeline at all

bloody ridiculous



NICK JR 2 is

It was VERY useful when dd2 was born

I also agree about it being great when dc are no longer napping, but still needing chill-out time. DD2 is at this stage and gets the Bits And Bobs/Balamory combo, which does drive me insane I must say

Oh Cbeebies is fab (apart from the shite programmes like Numberjacks and Waybaloo). DS watches a fair bit, but we go out lots too, I think it has done him good over the years.

Lol - there is no doubt that Nina is fantastic, but DH and I were trying to work out the point of Numberjacks the other day (what a riveting marriage we have...)