Anyone with small DC successfully cut out TV? How?!

[marzipananimal]

I really think TV isn't doing my 3 year old any good, but I have a baby too, am knackered, and often need to leave the toddler alone for a while to sort out the baby. It must be possible to live without TV right? How have you managed to cut it out?

We don't rely on TV the way our friends do, but then we only have 1 dd, so far easier to 'entertain' than having more than one child

DD loves Peppa Pig though - books, figurines, tv, anything with pp on like an umbrella or water bottle! She got in to Peppa Pig by going to my aunties house one day and instead of my aunty baby sitting, she stuck her in front of PP for the whole day. I wasn't happy tbh, especially as I'd said I don't let her watch TV unless there is an absolute need.

I know that if I need 15 minutes to start dinner or whatever, I will put it on. Alternatively, I have boxes of toys all seperated in to 'themes' which we rotate during the day. So, jigsaws, music instruments, cuddly toys / tea party, peppa pig figures, painting/drawing etc etc.

We also do a lot of reading out loud, singing and dancing. So I may put the TV on but I put a music channel on to have a little jig and be silly.

TV isn't banned in our house, but I'll look for alternatives prior to putting it on. I don't like how DD becomes mesmorised by it when it is on, or how frustrated she is when it is turned off

cBeebies is brilliant and I couldn't survive without it. BUT I agree with the poster above that just 'having the tv on' isn't good. I record programmes I know they like and that are educational. When I need to feed the baby upstairs without being disturbed, my toddler can choose one programme.

If it was on all day I think her behaviour would deteriorate though.

We have loads of TV in our house.
3 kids, and they will dip in and out of watching.
My oldest girl is 11 and a complete bookworm

My middle boy is a football fanatic. He will sit and watch a match no matter who is playing. He also loves top gear. But he will just as easily be outside playing football with his pals or riding his bike up and down.

The youngest 7 is a flaky tv watcher. She'll be watching something but of something better comes along ie her friends come to the door, she's off.

The 3 of them are excellent readers and doing very well in maths and irish (we live in Ireland). They also do lots of extra curricula activies, GAA, soccer, choir, drama, gymnastics etc

The TV here goes off at mealtimes or if we're playing a game etc but otherwise it's on.

Don't live without it completely - it'll turn your child into the one that insists on sitting glued to the telly when they visit friends. DS2 had a friend like this - his name was Thomas Watson - trendy left parents didn't allow sweets, tv, fast food etc. He became so obsessed with watching tv at other people's houses that my son called him Thomas Wat's-on-the-telly!
I had a timer on mine - it only came on for about an hour at a time then would mysteriously switch off. Took my children years to work it out

fortyplus, we don't use real names on MN so that children can't be identified.

It's not true about your child being the one that sits glued to the tv if you don't have it at home. We don't have it and the DCs ignore it even if we go to friends' houses where it's on. FWIW you don't have to be a trendy left parent not to allow fast food or sweets. Just a responsible one.

OP - do you have a seperate front room? If so, could you put the TV in there and shut the door, and play somewhere else for part of the day? That's what I did with mine - the back room was the playroom, and the TV was in the front room, and we didn't go in there until after their afternoon naps - well, they didn't go in there until after their naps - I headed straight in there with my lunch, as soon as they were in their cots!

If that's not possible, and you want to limit TV, then you have to start turning it off - or only having it on at certain times - and you will have to be prepared with exciting activities to do when the TV is off, to distract him from it. Perhaps you could develop a brisk, teacher-ish tone - 'Time for the TV to go off now - we are going to paint a picture/make biscuits/do a jigsaw/build a working model of the universe' - and don't be talked/whined/nagged out of it. Not as easy as it sounds, I know!

As others have said on this thread, there is plenty of good childrens TV out there, and children do learn from it. You have to decide how much you want your child to watch, and work towards that.

My kids do just fine without watching TV, they watch an hour and a half a week which is usually a family film at the weekend.
The school have noticed that my youngest especially has really long attention span and have bought it up at parents evenings and written it in reports. My oldest child is also about three/four years ahead in reading age too. So reducing TV can have its benefits...
It's been this way for about six years now. How I did it? I just turned it off, explained what we were doing and didn't switch it on again six days a week while the DC were awake. Simple! My oldest girl was three at the time by the way. So my youngest has never had more than an hour and half film once a week since she was born.

Forgot to add, they don't use any other 'screens' either, like iPads, gaming etc.

Getting out of the house! Toddler groups etc. Then whack on music or FunKids radio at home to wean off the screen.

(but be gentle on yourself!)

Btw - I had a TV addict DD1.

Now I have 4 DC - and watch zero TV in the week. The house is just naturally livelier - and I don't always have to provide the entertainement.

IMO when there is only 1 1/2 verbal people in the house - it
Can get a bit oppressive. Hence my advice about going out & using music/storyCDs/radio.

I agree leave the house. if you have nice quiet evenings maybe pack the nappy bag in advance to escape with the following day because leaving the house with a baby can be easier said then done I know.
In my house we have milkshake on in the morning (chan five kids mix) then when its finished that's it till tomorrow. I'm not anti tv, I just get cabin fever very easily so I need us out breathing real air.

I hate the argument that if you don't have TV or junk food at home, your kids will constantly be desperate for it.

Maybe this can be true if you obsessively ban something and offer no fun alternatives, but why would anyone do that?

I don't think they're desperate for it while they're small, they love all the other things on offer - but its the nature of anything that's prohibited, especially that others have, to be very appealing once they're older.

My first had no tv, no sugar until one and very little until 2. I've relaxed a lot with my second (the odd chocolate button give by older child before one! Shock!)

I think you get more experienced as a parent and you hear stories of other children who were kept free of tv and sugar just to be unable to self regulate when older. So for us we have both as part of a balanced healthy lifestyle . I think having tv in moderation is fine and removes the huge allure as they're older.

Not that I'd judge anyone at all for doing differently to us, but its been a well thoughtout change to allowing tv with our children partly for those reasons.

Had a similar problem especially as the baby got bigger and went into distraction mode. It led to leaving DD1 in front of the tv for 20 mins while I fed in another room so it had to stop.
TV fine but I am not comfortable using it as a method to "switch her off" as she is totally mezmerised and frustrated when it goes off. We have set times now, 30 mins after dinner and so on when we sit down together. Easier as the baby is now weaned to a bottle so she can watch Sarah and Duck and have a pre-bedtime feed at the same time.
What worked for me was to take both of them to either DC's bedroom and to read to the older child while feeding. Or have a tea party and be served imaginary tea etc. A few props are great and you can constantly add to it with empty tins and biscuit packets etc.

DS2 is 5 months old and DS1 has just turned 4 and when DS2 arrived I found that television consumption for DS1 rocketed and I felt incredibly guilty. Friends with 3 kids told me that they found tv consumption increased when each baby arrived then dwindled away again, and I'm pleased to say that's the case now.

We went on holiday when DS2 was 3 months old (nowhwere fancy, just a selfcatering chalet) and we hardly had tv on at all, we put the odd film on over 2 days, but little else as we were out and about, playing with toys/books etc.

When we got back from holiday DS1 has barely watched tv since then, to the extent there are times I've suggested he watch it for half an hour or so (generally it helps him unwind) and he's said no, he wants to play :-)

Ride the storm, don't worry about it, when it comes down to it, most kids will always want to interact with you than watch a screen. Now that DS2 is no longer a newborn and is getting nosier and can stay awake longer, i sit with DS2 on my knee and play lego or superheroes with DS1 (basically I just make voices for the little people and give him a narrative if I can't move the pieces) or we pretend we're pirates and turn the sofa into a ship (this way, I just sit there with the baby, saying 'ooaarr' a lot while DS1 leaps about, getting 'treasure' and swordfighting monsters and dinosaurs trying to attack our ship.

I think once your little one is a bit bigger and you have a bit more energy you can re-engage your son in play and if you do this, he'll happily leave the telly alone.

Thanks for all the ideas. I think I'll maybe wait til after Christmas when he has lots of new toys to distract him for a cold turkey attempt (no festive pun intended!). Things will hopefully be easier with the baby by then too.
He did manage to entertain himself for about 30 mins yesterday with a cup of milk and a straw making lots of bubbles!

My DF is an electrician and was a tv repair man for a while. I watch A LOT of TV growing up. My job was to follow DF to old ladies houses and tell him "the pictures still snowy" as he completed the repair. I was also top of my class reading and writing.

DP was not allowed a lot of TV growing up and when it's on he's glued to it. Although he was better at science type stuff.

I have morning sickness at the mo'. I told my 3 year old DS this morning I wasn't feeling very well. He handed me remote and told me to lie down on the sofa and put on Tree Fu Tom. I'm not in the right frame to refuse.

ZuleikaD yes I know that - but the 'child' in question is now an adult - and even if they were't, it's hardly an unusual name.

Clara/Zuleika I was interested to read your POVs. We don't have TV in the turn it on and it's there sense but we do watch shows on iplayer/4OD on laptops. DH also has an ipad. I am expecting my first and am worried that with the number of screens in the house (two laptops, ipad, two smartphones) we will end up resorting to screens for entertainment; when I was little, if there was no TV then there was also no possibility of watching!
Do your DCs ever ask to watch things on your phones or computers? How do you respond to that?

I was brought up without TV (in the 80s) and am enormously grateful to my parents for that - I really hope I can manage the same when my child does arrive.

For the OP (like the NN btw :) ) - we read a huge amount (reading by age 3), we wrote stories, we did lots of crafts, we played...we were lucky to have a dedicated playroom where we spent the majority of our time at home.
The age gap your kids have is similar to me and DB and we played together very well; one good thing about not having TV is no arguments about who gets to watch what..

The fact that I was brought up this way and don't have TV as an adult suggests that kids raised without TV don't necessarily get obsessed with watching it!

Introducing TV later does not make a child addicted, quite the reverse in my experience.

My DH and I never watch TV and just never really thought to put it on for the children, it is a very old set and complex to get working and in a room we hardly use. The computers/ipads etc are in our studies so again not in sight of the DC.

DS is now 9 and spends a couple of hours a day reading from choice rather than TV though he does occasionally choose to watch TV or play a computer game. All my DC can amuse themselves for hours but whether this is due to the early lack of TV or just inherited from their parents genes I have no idea.

I have never made it forbidden or restricted the number of hours as that would make it seem desirable I just didn't introduce it and the kids never thought to ask for it. Partly I think they liked to be around me and their toys and not in a different room without toys.

When they did watch any TV before the age of about 7 it was always pre recorded so they had never seen an advert and now find them very irritating.

Our tv broke on Saturday so no tv since then and we have got on fine (I sneaked Downtown on iPlayer on laptop today!). Read lots of books and played lots of games. We are out most of the time anyway.

I didn't have TV for most of my childhood, watched it a bit for about 6 months, and then didn't have one for 20 years or so. Our kids (as I said before) started out screen-free, are now 18, 15 and 12, and they watch sometimes, and use computers a fair bit (facebook, football, etc), but not as much as most of their friends.
Marzipan, I don't have a smartphone, so no one ever expected portable entertainment, but over the years, they learned to watch on the computer sometimes, without getting obsessed. They just started later than most kids, and never used screens a huge amount.