Aibu to let toddler have 2+ hours of screentime a day?

[Sheilasfeels]

I am at home with my nearly 2 year old. I work hard to make sure she's getting everything she needs, but on the average day I can read books, use playdough, play with duplo, play a letter/shape/puzzle game, give myself a pat on the back for being such an active and involved parent, and then look at the time and it's only 10:30 am! The toddler starts shouting for Mr Tumble or Dugee and I cave because I'm at a loss for what to do next. I make sure she gets a physical activity once a day, and a nap, but then there's another big gap between getting home and tea time and once we've played building blocks and drawing and tea parties there's still two hours to fill before dinner. I don't have the TV on in the background so it only goes on for kids programmes.

I have no idea how to fill all the day without my cbeebies crutch. What do you do to keep toddlers entertained and screen free?

I think it’s fine if it works for you. I tried to keep about an hour a day with my first and then relaxed into 2 hours with my second. The only way I could manage even that was by going out every morning.

I found it so difficult when they were young to keep them off iPad or tv. We used it for two hours a day every day! Even though I also took them to the park 2-3 hours a day or more (when it was not raining). Almost every day we managed to get to the park, as I would plan it for when it stopped or before it rained. Took them swimming, to playgroups etc. But at the end of day I would exhausted and need them to watch tv so I could cook in peace. My friends children never watch tv and the eldest is 5! I can’t beleive it! But she managed some how. But to be honest, I think it’s a bit sat to not allow a little bit of shows or movies. Now we don’t do tv or iPad during the week and only a couple hours during the weekend. But mine are now able to play on their own in the play room and read.

I guess it just depends if it works for you. We don’t have a TV, but do have an iPad that I sometimes let DD (21 months) watch things on. I’m very part time (pretty much a SAHM) and our days go a bit like this:

7.20 ish - DD up, we read books together in bed
8am - I have a shower, DD watches peppa pig for 10 mins on iPad
8.30- get her dressed, teeth done etc
9am ish - breakfast. I get her to make her own cereal / milk at her little table.
9.30 - tidy up / hang any washing etc up - she sort of ‘helps’ with this, in between playing with toys
10ish - we head out somewhere. Sometimes toddler groups / swimming or to the woods or park (whatever the weather) with the dog
1230 - home for lunch
1.15- 2.45 ish - nap
3- usually go out and play in the garden / ride her bike in the street until it gets dark
4.30 ish - she helps me make dinner (stands in a chair and slices things with her children’s knife)
5ish - we play together, read etc
Sometimes around 5.30 we will watch Wallace and Gromit for half an hour as she saw it at Christmas and loved it!
6pm - DH gets home, all have dinner
6.30 - generally all just hang out together and play
7.20 - bath
7.45 - bed

DD sleeps really well, and still has a decent nap, so I get some time to myself to chill and ‘reset’! Would probably have more screen time if I was knackered / she didn’t nap.

Try to choose screen time with really high quality language, stories and songs. There are huge variations in children’s programming.

I know how you feel OP. Mine is in nursery 3 days a week but we do struggle to fill the other four sometimes. I’m laughing at the people saying “oh, she needs to learn to play on her own”. My DS (2 and 3 months) has a lovely playroom next to the kitchen but won’t play in there for more than 5 minutes at a time without begging me to come and join in. Refusal just results in howls that do not end, setting him up with a puzzle or stickers etc, still no good. I can get nothing done in the house without the TV going on at some point (I need more than the 45 minutes that he naps) and, frankly, I run out of play ideas before all the hours are filled.

My solution is to be very picky about what he watches. I stick to songs that help language, songs with actions for him to imitate so he’s not just a couch potato, educational CBeebies and Little Baby Bum stuff about numbers, shapes, colours, animals, language etc etc. Milkshake Music Box And Milkshake Bop Box are fabulous.
I avoid things like Paw Patrol as he’s too young to understand the stories and it’s too frenetic. Peppa is OK as the stories are home/family-based so familiar points of reference for him. There is loads of good stuff and my son has learned a lot from TV- definitely alphabet, also very good counting from Numberblocks, and he can sing loads of songs really well.

There’s been loads of research recently saying that all the concerns about excessive screen time are mostly hysteria anyway, so I wouldn’t worry! It sounds like you’re doing great!

We used to try and go out twice a day. Library was great as well as shops, park, cafe, groups, swimming.

My DD is nearly 2, and I couldn't possibly get worked up about it. Actually, one of the things I bloody love is that when she's sleepy, around 11am, and might nap, she will curl up with me and watch Call the Midwife.

I really enjoy a lot of children's TV. I think maybe it was just not so good when we were small? I mean, Sarah and Duck is adorable. I genuinely like it. And Duggee is great, and even though personally I find Biggleton excruciating, I can see why DD enjoys and and I think fair enough.

My parents were very evangelical about limiting TV. We were not allowed to watch anything except a very restricted list (David Attenborough, the Royal Society Christmas lectures, and the odd 'Classical' such as - weirdly, because it gave me nightmares aged 7 - Great Expectations. I honestly think it had a very negative effect as we lacked such a basic cultural bond with other children, especially as we got older. I don't think I am very good at following a film's plot, either, and wonder if this is related.

I watch plenty of TV and films as an adult and I've no truck with pretending to hand-wring over DD doing it too.

It’s all very well suggesting that they “help” with housework but there are lots of things that involve boiling water, cleaning fluids, flames, scissors/knives, trip/slip hazards. Not practical or safe to involve a toddler in everything.

SarahandQuack yes Sarah and Duck is fab, so surreal sometimes! Duggee is also very clever and I have a soft spot for the Twirlywoos. I do often watch TV with DS and enjoy it a lot.

Hmm. I think you can involve them in quite a bit. Boiling water and cleaning fluids I wouldn't, and I can't imagine where housework involves flames (gas hob?), but I let mine use a blunt knife or scissors or hot water with supervision and she's fine. I suspect this is because her bio parents (not me!) are both very dextrous and meticulous people, but for the purposes of this thread, I shall claim I believe it is because she watches that fucking annoying One World Kitchen avidly.

Ooh, yes, Twirlywoos! I love Twirlywoos. It's just so nicely made.

Yes, gas hob. You’re lucky, my DS will not use his own “safe” implements and will literally try to wrestle the sharp ones from me - “I do it”.

Yeah, we have a bit of that, but luckily it's still possible to fool her. Probably not much longer. I used to give her a spare old iron to play-iron with, and the other week watched her cheerfully plug it in and turn on the switch!

So, more Twirlywoos and less ironing for us.

Every child is different and I appreciate that I'm lucky that DD has always been good at entertaining herself. It does make the day a lot easier if she's happy to play with her toys by herself. I'd definitely work on encouraging them to spend time not being entertained as it will make your life so much easier in the long run! Maybe try with things that aren't toys (DD loves scooping things in and out of bowls for example) or do you have toys that you put away so they may not have seen for a while? We also try to get to baby groups as it's a bit of a break for me and change of environment for her. She hardly has any screen time and one bonus is that this is then a novelty if we're having a difficult day!

I had an early riser. Then an early riser and a new born. Tv went on at 6, which was as early as cbeebies started. It also went on at lunch and again to.wind down after tea. Child 1 is an avid tv watcher. He also has an amazing vocab, reads every thing and is massively imaginative. Child no2,no so into tv, or reading or imagination. I'm not trying to.say tv has made child 1'better', but it certainly hasn't damaged him.

Slightly different, OP, as mine were little before screens were a big thing (now 15 and 16). However, the young toddler years are etched on my mind.

6.30 AM they would appear in our bed. I would read to them (always the same books).

Bit later: family breakfast, at the table

9 ish: A walk. To somewhere. Anywhere. Walking was a must. It took a very long time to walk half a mile to the library/playgroup/post office/supermarket/friend's house/park at toddler pace. Involved drain-inspection, refusals to move, etc. If there was no equally desperate friend/toddler group/shopping, then a different walk (woods, etc). This happened in all weathers. If desperate, swimming was a possibility (and I detest swimming).

12.30-1: Lunch, together, at the table.

After lunch: Nap (for me, too). Once they ditched the nap, it was more stories. I knew them off by heart, so could 'read' them with my eyes shut, as I was so knackered by then.

2.30: thought about bed and bath and realised it was still a while off Duplo. The Argos catalogue with DC1 (he was obsessed for a while). Any repetitive game. My Little Pony Rescue. Stuffed Toy Vet's Surgery.

The afternoons felt several years long, sometimes. But now they seem to have vanished all too quickly.

5.00: tea

6.00: bath

6.30: more stories

7.00 Bed

Pretty monotonous, I suppose, by 'modern' standards. But we were all happy with it in our own ways apart from when I wanted to cry when it was 3PM and not teatime yet

I realise on re-reading this that not much housework got done. it still doesn't. I used to shower last thing at night, as taking them into the bathroom with me in the morning was a pain.

Loving all these parents who wake up at 6 in the morning raring and ready to read children’s books for half an hour.....I just about manage to switch on Hey Duggee whilst I doze....

There’s absolutely nothing wrong or detrimental with TV time, that’s been proven. This issue is if they’re in a family where TV replaces social interaction as this effects language skills or where it replaces physical activity. As long as you’re doing these things alongside TV it really doesn’t matter.

I put it on whenever we are in but he’s not actually watching it most of the time, it’s just background noise

I think I did write a bit of a disclaimer, Lampshadylady, in that we haven't got a TV, and iPads etc didn't exist then. I wasn't raring to read at 7AM. I did it because I had toddlers who wanted attention, and it was a good way to give it to them. I suppose I could have chosen to buy a TV, but because I have always read (and am in fact a writer), I chose to read instead. DC1 is going to do English at Cambridge. No idea whether there's a link.

You can watch TV sometimes and read sometimes too it’s not either or. I have a first in English Lit and my husband is a journalist. Our daughter still enjoys a bit of Sarah and Duck!

DC1 is going to do English at Cambridge. No idea whether there's a link.

I doubt there's a link. I have taught several cohorts of Cambridge English students and, on the whole, they seem to be no different than anyone else in terms of exposure to TV.

Jolly good, Sarah. As I say, this is what we did Before Screens. The OP asked what parents could do that didn't involve screens, and I told her what I used to do. I do think reading is better than TV (hence I don't still don't have a TV), but two of my DC now watch TV on their phones, so I am no evangelist.

Jolly good, Knight. As you'd recognise if you thought about it for a moment, my undergrads were also of the era Before Screens. No?

Indeed, if you read my post again, you will notice I did not say 'screens' but 'TV'.

Sorry, Sarah. I had mistaken a TV for a screen. But anyway, I think the answer is, as my teenagers would say: whatever. On the whole, any child with reasonably interested and engaged parents will be fine.