How my TV you let your child watch?

[Herts501]

I have a 16 month old who will sit and stare at the tv for the whole day if we let him.

Myself and my partner disagree about how long to let him watch per day and I wondered what other parents do?

Subject should read "How much TV do you let your child watch"! It's been a long day! Xx

It varies for my 15 month old. Maybe 30 mins in the morning, an hour or so in the afternoon, but he doesn’t sit and stare at it the whole time… sometimes it’s just on in the background. Some days it might be more, some days less… we don’t make too much of a fuss about it.

Ds is almost 2. Until recently he didn’t watch any. Now he often watches 20 mins in the evening around 6pm whilst I sort dinner. He doesn’t really have the patience to sit that long tbh.

Oh and I wouldn’t mind him watching a bit longer, he just doesn’t like sitting still.

None at that age, it's not good for development. Maybe up to 20 mins a day (but not every day) at 2, a bit more as she got older. At nearly 5 she doesn't watch it, or use other screens, every day, but when she does it's an hour max unless we're watching a movie together.

0 at that age it's completely unnecessary for such a young child.
Once they are a bit older 3/4 years old and can understand a storyline, so not a totally mindless use of time, 15 - 20 mins a day is plenty.

Errr none at 16 months. No 16 month old needs to be watching television. How much are you both proposing.

None at that age.

My youngest watched 20 mins about 3 times a week with his older sister. Oldest didn't really watch any. DH is quite strict on screens. I probably would allow a bit more for an easy life, but it's not great to watch much under 2.

Oh god there's nothing wrong with a 16 month old watching TV. My son used to love Mr Tumble at that age.

Jesus all those previous parents are better than me! Mine definitely both watched a bit of tv age 16 months. PFB maybe 20 mins a day but second was a lockdown baby, I had bad PND and an older child so when he was 16 months the tv was on probs 3 hours a day?! He didn’t solidly watch it though. I can’t feel guilty- I needed it to cope.

Mine didnt watch tv at that age
They are 6 and 7 now and watch 30mins-1h per day. They dont get screens every day though.

There's nothing more I have wanted for a long time (so sad I know) than to see a day in the life of one of these parents who don't use TV until child/children are 3/4😂 especially those with more than one child. Like...share your magical secrets?!

Either your house is a dirty mess, you don't mind the sound of screams and tugging at your legs all day, or you have a maid and possibly a chef.

I don’t think there’s any harm at all in an episode of in the night garden or similar. However, it’s not great for longer than 30 mins, tbh.

@use257 my house is a mess

DS will only watch in five minutes bursts.

If you want to go for a shit in peace there is nothing wrong with plonking your child in front of ceebeebies for a bit. But if you want to be a martyr, then crack on.

All day everyday is not good though.

@use257

There's nothing more I have wanted for a long time (so sad I know) than to see a day in the life of one of these parents who don't use TV until child/children are 3/4😂 especially those with more than one child. Like...share your magical secrets?!

Either your house is a dirty mess, you don't mind the sound of screams and tugging at your legs all day, or you have a maid and possibly a chef.

They're all the one's posting on MN about how they're on the brink of having a nervous breakdown because they've never had ten minutes to themselves since their PFB graced the earth with their presence.

None at that age. At 2 years old I think I let my DC watch about 20 mins a day when they were at home (vs nursery days, when they watched none)

Depends on the weather and the day tbh. My dc are older now but I've always been fairly relaxed. We were generally very busy so little tv was watched for the most part but on rainy days at home just as much as they wanted. Always keen to do crafts etc too so they never sat and watched it loads. Never understood rigid rules around it. Just causes more desire imo

I must be the only shite parent who has the tv on constantly. She (2yo) plays with her toys, does puzzles, reads (look at pictures) books.. but it’s always on.
She’ll spend 10 minutes here and there actually engrossed in what’s on it.. but otherwise just totters around glancing at it now and again while playing tea parties or shops with me.

She also has screen time on the kindle and honestly she’s learnt so much that shocks me, colour sorting and not just basic colours but different shades of colours, counting, speech.. she’s recently been to
Her 2 year review and she was say matching and saying all the colours of the toys and the HV had no concerns, said she was actually very forward and for me not to worry about anything (I thought she might be behind as she doesn’t use the word ‘I’ very often at all, still speaks as third person)

To be fair, she’s very interactive whether there’s screens around or not, we play lots of role play games, love reading together and she’s so polite it make my heart ache.

Honestly we have never had a screen limit for DS7, when he was younger the TV was on constantly mostly with my shows and then when he got older and could understand we moved to kid friendly shows.

Maybe we have been lucky but he hasn’t effected him in fact he can take or leave screens .( we still don’t have limits) and is top of his class at school.

I'd like to pitch my kids against the sanctimonious PPs kids when they're older just to prove a point... mine have watched a fair amount from birth essentially (for the second one) but they also do lots of other things. They're loved and stimulated in many ways but there's a balance for parent mental health that tv time is important for... plus they do actually learn stuff from the tv. Anyway yeah I would love to see if the kids who watched no tv until they were 5 do better than mine in exams... friendships... career... mental health etc because I'm going to bet my life on no.

@use257

There's nothing more I have wanted for a long time (so sad I know) than to see a day in the life of one of these parents who don't use TV until child/children are 3/4😂 especially those with more than one child. Like...share your magical secrets?!

Either your house is a dirty mess, you don't mind the sound of screams and tugging at your legs all day, or you have a maid and possibly a chef.

You know I do think it depends on the child to some extent. Some kids aren't interested in tv and/or will just sit happily/quietly doing something else/not much. And then the parents think it's them being great parents (like when you have a kid who sleeps, eats etc).

Some kids really get something from tv, and some need the downtime watching it. Some parents need it, everyone's happy. Everyone's different. But yeah, I think some people are way rigid and give themselves anxiety about all kinds of parenting decisions when they could really chill out a bit

Anyway yeah I would love to see if the kids who watched no tv until they were 5 do better than mine in exams... friendships... career... mental health etc because I'm going to bet my life on no.

My guess is they'll be bingers just like dc who were denied sweets or any junk food at all with little to no self regulation skills.

I would let Ds watch more, but he just isn’t interested yet. Many when older.

As a child I very rarely watched tv. This was pre Netflix, we had no sky etc, and just channels 1-3 with dodgy Ariel so it was iffy if it worked or not. I guess didn’t get into the habit. We have a tv and Netflix now, but dh or I only watch occasionally.