My 18 mo is a telly addict :-(

[AnnaBanana25]

We used to offer putting on one short show at random points in the day which he enjoyed but wasn't significant as it was no longer than 10 minutes. Over the last 3 weeks I fear we have created a little telly addict, through a variety of reasons we have had to be quite house bound, from chickenpox to us being poorly and now ds being poorly.

I decided last night, no more. And he is struggling to play with any toys, keeps jumping on the sofa saying "pleea" and pointing at the telly, I feel like a terrible mum. He has no imagination and is crying and upset because we have enabled this and now will struggle to undo it. It doesn't help that my voice still hasn't returned from illness so I'm trying to whisper to him which he can't hear over tantrums.

What do we do?? How do we undo this habit? I wish we never introduced him to it.

[mamaneedsamojito]

My DS (2yrs) has started saying 'TV. Pleeease' when we go downstairs first thing in the morning. Most of the time I just say 'No, X isn't on today. We're going to play with your toys.'. Sometimes he whinges for a bit but I see it like an other toddler tantrum - I'm the boss so he can like it or lump it!

We do watch the odd bit of TV, usually if he's been up mega early (5am sometimes) and I need to drink a cuppa while I wake up, or sometimes before bath time when I'm trying to get him to start winding down (he usually has a mad, hyper 30 mins at about 5.30pm). It should be on your terms though. If you're worried he's relying on it too much just go cold turkey. We sometimes have it on 'my' programmes in the background and he's completely disinterested in watching the News.

[AnnaBanana25]

Good idea. Cold turkey is best I think. That's what I mean about my voice not helping at the minute. I don't want to make excuses but I can only whisper so he isn't getting my explanations very well. I'm also not sure he is totally better, we still need to get through a course of antibiotics. Might head off straight away in the buggy this morning. Even just to the shops. Don't need anything but will get him away from it.

[lenibose]

We are a mostly screen free family (except for sports). But when he was ill last year I let DS watch a lot of CBeebies and he got a bit addicted (was 2.5 then) and lost the ability to play. We went cold turkey and it took a week and he stopped asking. The thing is that in that week you have to be quite proactive and engage them a lot to stop the whinging. So you need to be up to full fitness as well. With DS every time he asked for the telly we offered a book instead. It will be fine!