How much telly is your under 2 watching?

[MouMouCow]

DS is 18 months and has started recently watching cbeebies in the morning for 30 min and then in the evening for another 30 min and DP finds it too much and is concerned. DS only used to watch 30 min in the evening until then, but discovered Bob the builder and wants to watch it every day...
I'm quite happy with DS' vocabulary and capacity to express himself, and the fact that he is now showing signs he can empathise with characters and follows stories (watched the episode of the Night Garden where one of the Tomliboos got lost with fascination, very focused though).
Is it too much telly time for such a wee little boy?
If during weekends we're out and about 3 or 4 hours every day does it compensate? It's not that he watches telly all day. He can ride a scooter like a 3 year old which I'm very proud of.
or are we making a fuss about nothing?
I'd like your views please?

DS watches Balamory (he is 13mths) with his teddy. Actually sits still while I make lunch for both of us hurrah and watches it and takes interest. I think he has taken a bit of a shine to Miss Hoolie (must be the hair .

Other than than he's too busy to be bothered with it, although he is partial to watching a couple of songs by ELO in concert with DH when its wind down before bedtime routine. Its always been their thing ever since he was tiny. Mr Bluesky has him singing along!

I did no tv before one with ds1 - none AT ALL. Looking back, it just seems nuts to me now. I was very isolated, lonely and struggling and really it wouldn't have killed me to have tv on every once in a while. Instead I sat in front of him dangling carefully selected items from the treasure basket or jiggling props about that I had matched to various nursery rhymes . Then I got pregnant, lay slack-jawed on the couch feeling horrendous most of the time and watched him develop obsessions with Thomas, Fireman Sam and Octonauts. It doesn't appear to have damaged his brain development yet and of course since I jumped on that bandwagon ds2 who is four months has heard many episodes of Mike the Knight and Octonauts through the endless feeding of the last few months. Yet here he is at four months saying babababa and dadadada which his older brother didn't manage until nearly six and a half months.

DD is 21 months and watches tv in the morning while I get ready for work and maybe for 15 minutes or so in the evening while I cook her dinner. Not every day but probably most days.

It's simple - if I want to get to work before 10am, she watches tv. Otherwise she would be interupting me and it would take me forever to get ready. Similarly in the evening, if she wants feeding, she sometimes has to watch tv. She's better at running around and entertaining herself with other things in the evening for some reason, but in the morning she likes company.

Not ideal but that's just how life works.

I let my 5 month old DD watch every episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so about an hour or so of TV every day bad mummy.

My DS (13 months) only watches TV when we do - which is rarely more than the news, which he largely ignores, but is probably every day. And usually DH and I are more listening to it while doing other things rather than sitting and watching. I'd like to keep him away from TV as a way for him to entertain himself until he's 2, but am aware that am a giant hypocrite due to news watching

Would be interested to know whether this is better or worse than them watching kids TV instead. Not to judge, just curious.

Oh dear, we watch loads! Tikkabilla, Something Special, Woolly and Tig, Peppa Pig and Get Well Soon are all favourites of mine. I turn it off if it's nothing we are actually watching though. We also watch the Wiggles. We do other stuff too, honest!

I needed children TV programmes in my language as everybody else was speaking English around us. Not before 18 months though.

I've no idea how much or how little time DD (3.6)watches TV. It changes from day to day. It's only on when we're sitting down watching it.
I also don't know how many hours we spend playing with her, reading to her etc.
Before I had her I was a Nanny & had a family who didn't allow tv for under 3's. When I had playdates, the only difference was my charge found it hard to relate to tv inspired games & at nursery was definitely isolated. There was no intellectual difference at all.

Penelope I think having news TV or radio constantly on in the background can be damaging - apparently it encourages under-twos to tune out the noise which can hinder their language development. But watching the news once daily is fine!

DD watches TV. 20 - 40 minutes (two CBeebies shows) about every second day. At the weekend one morning we'll usually watch something like Finding Nemo all together.

I'm a SAHM so if I'm sick or she's been up half the night sometimes she has a 'TV morning' where she watches a couple of hours while I rest on the couch!

She never asks for it. It's nice to have Something Special or Show Me to fall back on if I need to do some work and want her amused for twenty minutes.

It is easy to start letting her watch more and more though. I have to actively try to restrict both of our screen time (I don't like her seeing me spending ages on Facebook or whatever). Fortunately she is very active and destructive so likes to be out and about or following me about pretending to clean as much as she does sitting on the couch.

I've been watching this post closely as I too posted something very similar, when my dd was ill I was worried I was letting her watch too much tv an she was 15 months at the time. After taking quite a bashing on mumsnet, which I didn't think was very fair, I spoke to my hv and friends that have kids and they said its absolutely fine for ur child to watch tv. If u take ur child out for activities, groups etc then why not both enjoy some cartoon time together. After posting I got really paranoid that I was a terrible mum letting my child watch peppa pig and Ben and holly but after seeing what other mums on this post have to say I see that it's perfectly normal for a child to watch tv and if they enjoy it why not. I'm from a generation that loved tv, going live, thunder cats etc those classics lol but that find stop me fr having a hobbie almost every single day.

I tend to prefer to not get on with the housework/get on with it and let my DS learn to enjoy playing with his duplo and peppa toys than get caught on the slippery slope to too much TV, but a lot of parents might say our toddler already watches too much (but read on...). I find pretty much everything on TV too fast-paced/flickery, including Bob the Builder IMO. Of course my DS would love to watch it because it has diggers in it with faces on, but I personally felt it wasn't really that great for him, so we moved on after trying it for 1.5 episodes. But that doesn't mean we've banned all TV. Thomas is pitched at a level that is more suitable for his age group, and he gets that occasionally.

I know you've got problems setting up DVDs, but I really would recommend going back through the centuries and purchasing the Trumpton set (39 episodes, so very good value). Tons of soothing narration, slow-paced, made in the 60s so no whacky stuff pitched way beyond his age, and my DS is absolutely hooked on it because of the fire engine, windmill, crane, musical box, lovely songs...as was I back in the day (sigh!). I would also really recommend Bagpuss and the Clangers as a follow-on. Once you've watched these you might understand what the experts mean when they say TV aimed at toddlers tends to be cut so it's too fast for their attention spans to keep up. From what I've witnessed with my under-2, watching these programmes is more like having a story read to you and gives you time to ask questions, catch up and even interact (very sweet when my ds started waving to the Trumpton fire engine and the train every time they went along their route, and clapping when they played their little songs).

Because of this we've kind-of found ourselves watching sometimes 40 mins of this stuff per day with our DS (he doesn't watch it without us), but we also read to him and join in his play a lot (as he's our pfb, obvs) and he does tons of other stuff, and I actually see it as having been good for his language acquisition and understanding of the world because of the repetition and narration explaining what's happening on screen. I wouldn't have let DS watch more than 20 mins even of the slowest best-made contemporary stuff because the plotlines are IMO too complex/the digital images too bright and addictive. As for Baby Einstein DVDs, research has shown they're actually not good for IQ development, but I've never watched them so I can't say whether I'd have been more stupid than I am already if I'd cast my non-professional eye over them.