To ask how much TV your kids watch? Be honest.

[PerfectPeony2]

Before I had my daughter I told myself she would hardly ever watch TV, not have a dummy, play with wooden toys and not eat chips until she was 5.

15 months down the line with a highly strung toddler. I must admit I have the TV on for most of the day when we are home. Whether it be Peppa/ Duggee/ my Netflix programmes, I have it on in the background. It keeps DD entertained and makes me feel less isolated.

I spend loads of time playing with her, go to toddler groups on each of my days off, play outside, she goes to nursery 3 days a week. She is doing really well.

Just wondering what the norm is here? I know I watched a lot of TV as a kid and I’d like to think I turned out okay...

DS1 (almost 14) barely watches any actual TV these days, but will watch an hour or so of YouTube/Netflix/anime a day, more at weekends sometimes.

DS2 (7) watches about 30 mins of Netflix a day while I make dinner. An hour or two if we're not going out at weekends.

Both watched a lot more as toddlers, a couple of hours a day I'd say. I'd never have got anything done otherwise! I tried to make sure they were watching the more educational shows on CBeebies and they learned a lot from them. DS2 can tell you all sorts of odd facts from watching Do You Know . They are both doing well at school, read lots, have other hobbies and don't seem to have suffered for it. I suspect people who say kids should never ever watch TV have never had to entertain a bored toddler or two whilst cooking, cleaning and making important calls!

11 year old watched around 20 mins of cartoons before school then around an hour of shows like the goldbergs as a family in the evening.

A few hours a day. It's a mix of fun and educational. Mine are 3, 5 and 7, and they're home educated, so they watch (eg) French and Spanish programmes, then stuff like Ask The Storybots or The Magic School Bus for science. They've learned a lot.

My youngest is currently obsessed with Dora the Explorer and loves to tell us that arriba is up and abajo down.

With DD1 I tried to

Oops.

With DD1 we tried to do no TV at all, but that all went out the window when I got pregnant with DD2. I used to put Thomas The Tank Engine DVDs on for her then nap on the sofa while she watched.

It really depends on the day, Pretty much every morning while I'm sorting out DD 18mo clothes, breakfast etc. Then most days we are out of the house until her lunchtime nap. Then she will watch while I sort out dinner. I would say 2 hours of mixture of cartoons/number learning videos etc. But she will only sit still for 10 minutes before shes off playing with her toys, but it's still on in the background.

Nothin in the morning until they are fed, dressed and ready to go to school.

Evenings after clubs/homework etc finished they have until 7pm.

Weekends pretty much what they want as long as they have done what they need to do.

Oh Lordy this strikes a cord.....
I got rid of the tv aerial and licence a few years ago when I was horrified by how much CBeebies my kids actually watched

Now they watch YouTube, amazon prime and the DisneyLife app instead😂😂

Traded one bad habit for another we did....

and yes op when mine were Very little i liked the tv on in the background for noise too. It can get lonely with caring for lo.

Almost never, they're always on their phones.

None but she's only 6 months. Recommendations are zero screen time until 2, so we'll see how that goes. I hate seeing small babies strapped or wedged into seats in front of TVs.

I do have the radio on most days though for background noise. Not sure how that is for development, there's conflicting research.

We usually watch an episode of a tv series Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. That’s it.

My TVs on all day from the minute I get up til I go to bed. I'm not about restrictions.

I'd say that my restrictions are for the good of my children. It's actually I cannot stand background noise so they only watch as much children's stuff as I can watch. Mainly octonauts, go jetters, cocomelon and super simple songs as they don't annoy me.

I aimed to limit it to an hour at that age, I think I was reasonably successful although sometimes it was more. We used to go out a LOT, we were outside every day even in the rain, went to several toddler groups every week, swimming, had a season ticket to a local farm, met friends etc. I had a lot of things to do at home too - garden toys, sandpit, play doh, puzzles, small toys, dolls. I'll admit that when I had newborn DD2 DD1 would have watched several hours, maybe 3, on some days while I was feeding but that stage didn't last too long luckily.

My toddler (almost 2) has a lot of TV at the moment. Twins are 3 months old and I struggle a lot during the day. Hoping soon we'll get in the swing of things and the twins will settle (can't even go for a walk at the moment without constant screaming) and we can do more.

5 and 4 year olds are at school. They have 10 mins in the morning if they’re ready for school in time (an incentive not to faff!), then half an hour after they get home from school to wind down.
Baby is 8 months so none yet.

An hour or so in the morning depending on when they wake up, and an hour or so after school if they're tired. Weekend can easily be 5 hours a day if we don't make an effort to do stuff.

They're currently on a tv ban due to ignoring instructions and their behaviour and sleep is significantly improved. If you can teach kids to entertain themselves I think it is better. However some kids just can't, dd2 needs dd1 or an adult to lead any playing.

My DD is 2yo. She watches TV for around 40 minutes each morning after breakfast, Daniel the Tiger Neighbourhood mostly, so that's two episodes. This is 5 days a week, the other two she goes to a childminder. I don't feel bad about it, Daniel the Tiger is great and very educational and I need this time to do something around the house, clean the kitchen, hoover... otherwise it would be nearly impossible. We haven't got any help or family nearby, so I don't see how in these circumstances you can survive without resourcing to tv sometimes.

Only in very miserable days when it is raining a lot and we have to be inside all day she may watch a bit more again in the afternoon, but that's not often.

I think watching A LOT of tv is not good, but some tv and choosing the right thing...I don't see how it can be so bad.

My 12 month old isn’t really interested and wouldn’t sit still for TV so not a lot! If I’m trying to cook dinner and he’s being a pain, I’ll put him in the high chair with something on. He likes youtube videos of ducks or dogs (likes to quack or woof at them) at the moment, or songs he can dance to.

TV is pretty much always on in our house too. We all like the background noise. 4 year old DS watches cbeebies before nursery in the morning and usually asks to watch something whilst I'm making dinner (Numberblocks is his favourite at the moment! Thank God he's past the Bing phase) and we watch the bedtime hour before bed each night. We don't have tablets or anything or let him use our phones, so a bit of TV throughout the day doesn't hugely bother me. 1 year old DS isn't bothered by the TV yet, he tends to just want to throw things at it

My almost 3 year old watches quite a bit of TV, but is usually playing something alongside it. He has around an hour in a morning in bed with us, then maybe 2/3 hours in the afternoon.

I don’t think it has done any harm. He is average with speech and communication, can recognise digits to 30, add and subtract small numbers and can sound out and read CVC words. A lot of which he has learned from numberblocks and Alphablocks!

Just adding that I do sometimes have stuff on in the background for me though. When he was little I’d watch anything but now he’s a bit more aware, I try to only have more child-friendly content like Location, Location, Location and Bake Off, rather than OITNB 😂

My 17 month old has never watched tv. Recommendations are no screen time for under 2s so I’ve just never had it on. We play with him and read to him instead. In a year or so I might let him watch a little bit. I loved tv as a child but don’t think I saw it before primary school age.

My tv is on all the time, mainly background noise while I play with little one as I hate the house being quiet

Recommendations are no screen time for under 2s so I’ve just never had it on.

AFAIK those recommendations aren’t actually based on any real science though. Am I wrong? I thought the issue was screen time replacing physical activity, rather than the act of actually watching TV.