AIBU to ban tv for my dds (age 2 and 4)?

[silkcushion]

Something snapped last Friday. It may have been seeing cbeebies panto for the 100th time or the realisation that they can both impersonate Dora, Diego and Swiper the bloody fox perfectly.

I haven't let them watch TV since then and the howling protests have confirmed it may well have been the right decision.

I am also hoping it may help my dd2 get back into her previously good sleep pattern. She's been waking between 3.30m and 4am for 6 weeks now and it's killing me. She doesn't get out of bed or cry but lies there singing loudly or reenacting episodes of Go Diego Go with her teddies. Sounds sweet but is actually exhausting night after night. It typically ends with her falling back to sleep just as we have to get up!

My girls are in full time nursery Mon-Fri - would you relent and let them have any TV at the weekend?

YANBU. You are being very brave though! FWIW DB and I grew up with very limited television and looking back, I liked it that way. It did mean though that whenever I went round to friends and the TV was on, I could not tear myself away and ended up practically ignoring my poor friends just to get a TV fix!!!

Nowadays DDs have very limited TV during the week and only educational websites. I have to admit that weekends are a bit of a free-for-all though.

thank you for all your responses.

Amazingly dd2 actually slept all the way through last night. not sure if it was as a result of 3 days of no TV, turning off her radiator at bedtime so her room must have been pretty cold or the hideous pre bedtime threat that a middle of the night waking would result in her being removed to a spare room (used by dsd in holidays) - she seemed horrified at that potential punishment. fwiw that room is just round the corner from hers but is generally kept dark/cold etc.

whatever the reason she slept and I remember what it's like to feel human and functional again today. I let them watch one episode of Dora this evening whilst I cooked dinner (based on the advice of the first fewer posters) and had a total meltdown from both of them on my hands when I switched it off!

Definitely no TV after midweek(unless Dh picks them up and caves in - very likely)

I have to say our weekend was lovely - long walks in the countryside, lots of imaginative playing and one on one interaction. However, we'd been off work for xmas so the washing/ironing/daily grind of chores was all up to date. Dh was also being very committed to this and 'present' the whole time (instead of trying to check football scores/sports stuff on his laptop). It will take some resolve and will power to keep this up next weekend but I really want to as I love spending quality time with my little girls.

As a child of the 70s myself I certainly remember very limited evening viewing (newsround and blue peter) and the delicious treat of saturday morning watching tv in our pyjamas whilst our parents had a lie in. maybe when they are big enough to head downstairs without stairgates I'll let them watch hours of telly on weekend mornings and catch up on all the sleep i've missed since they were born!

YANBU. We unplugged ourselves from the Outside World around a year ago, and I've never looked back. The flat is a LOT messier tho. Jigsaws/plasticine/doll playsets take far more clearing up than a remote control.

We have never had a TV, even before we had kids. Hate the things.

We do have a computer for watching DVDs and internet. DS does a fair bit of online gaming but hours are limited, particularly during the week.

Inconsistency between parents can be difficult. DW is a bit of a screen addict and would probably watch paint dry all day if you put it on the computer screen. So we do constantly argue about maintenance of screen-limit policies for the kids.

Nonetheless, I do still feel that there are some major differences between TV and other screen-based media. The thing I hate most about TV is the way people just "have it on" even when they're not watching anything. Just a bloody random noise-and-lights box. That's how kids grow up thinking that the normal everyday state is to have constant sensory distraction and that they can't live without it. And doing anything else becomes a matter of being dragged away from the TV as default time-filler.

Games, although I'm not into them personally, I think can actually be quite stimulating in terms of things like problem solving.

There are varying claims from studies about whether TV harms children, but I think the most recent ones I read about showed that it's most harmful to the youngest ones, and ideally kids should have none whatsoever when they're very little. Can't remember what the age was when they said it became OK, but I suspect you're certainly doing the right thing for your 2 and 4 year old.

^ I think that TV is less harmful than computers...there's much more scope with a computer. Obviously ten minutes of computer time is better than a day of background TV, but I wouldn't like to mess around with that ratio. I hate the idea of children playing with games, knowing their way round the internet, and people saying it's essential for their future. Our brains don't switch off at 21, they can pick these things up just as well at 15 or 16- as most of the people here did, or much later.