How much screen time is 'acceptable'?

[Bellabon]

Just as the title says - I'm curious as to how much screen time your LO's have per day? Just to add - my DS is to 14 months - I would say he has 1hr30mins a day which I personally think is too much - (I am changing this from today and trying to think of other things to do with him which is hard with the weather!).
But just curious do you agree this is too much? And honestly how many hours do your LO's have the TV on?
All honest answers are welcome please

My nearly 3 year-old can often clock up 1.5-2 hours a day in several shorter bursts. This is since being heavily pregnant and now also having a small baby. She does watch things like Peppa Pig but generally a range of what cbeebies offers. The longest stretches will be in a morning when I'm trying to get us all up and ready and on an evening while making tea. We do go out every day and she will play with toys a lot as well but she wants me to play with her. I don't know if it's too much or not, it's just how we cope.

Mine is 17 months and isn’t really that interested in it UNLESS it’s Peppa Pig. She loves that and asks for it on all the time but I usually only let her watch it in the morning in our bed while I wake up properly, and then occasionally if we are in the car and I need to keep her awake. If she was more into it I know I’d probably use it to keep her quiet while I did the odd thing around the house though, my nephew of the same age loved the tv (not even kids stuff, just it being on) and it’s a godsend when my SIL needs to get something done!

Just to say OP, you aren’t imagining it, DC are really hard to entertain around the age of 1. Well at least I thought so anyway! So physical but very little interest in toys/drawing/painting/activities etc. All DS wanted to do was destroy the house. I was also one of those parents who was basically out of the house all day apart from nap times and mealtimes! DS started becoming more interested in ‘playing’ at about 18 months and was fabulous at it from 2 onwards. It’ll get better and if a bit of TV sees you through then don’t beat yourself up about it - we had no TV until 2 but actually in hindsight it just made my life really difficult!

My 9 year old and I had a big chat today about the seven wonders of the world and the seven wonders of the ancient wood and what should be on a list of seven wonders of the natural world. Much of his initial knowledge of all of these came from watching go jetters between the ages of 3 and 5.
l’m a huge CBeebies fan.

@MGee123 no I didn't take it as a criticism at all 😊 as in my OP all honest replies welcome! I appreciate everybody's comments

Oh good, not just my child then haha

Mine are early to mid 20s.
I thank my lucky stars they escaped screens as young kids!

My little boy is 1 and has about 30 mins screen time. Usually after breakfast whilst I'm clearing up.
Some days (if he's poorly or we've had a terrible nights sleep) it's on a lot more.
Today it's been on twice for about 30 mins each time.
He's only really started to show an interest in tv and it is useful to sit and drink a cuppa in peace because he is sooo active and it's the only time I can switch off.
I think as long as it's not hours a day and the baby/toddler is getting lots of interaction and playing and stimulation else where then a bit of screen time is absolutely fine. Inevitably in the winter screens are on more as well.

I think it depends how much childcare you use. 1.5 hours is very normal, I think, if you're at home with your child all day. My friends who use nursery often have very little screentime - I think the absence of screentime is a real benefit of full time nursery actually.

On days my toddler daughter does a morning of preschool we won't have much - if any - screen time. If it's a day where she's at home with me all day, she watches all sorts of rubbish because parenting is hard work and I need a break!

Here comes the odd one out 🙋🏻‍♀️🤣 I personally don’t like screen time and try to avoid it whenever possible 🤣 DC is 26 months. On a normal day we don’t have the tv on at all! I don’t even have it on as background noise. On a day where perhaps one of us is unwell and we just need a little while to relax or whatever then I’ll pop on a couple of animated Julia Donaldson stories. So maybe the equivalent of about 30 mins per week? 🤷🏻‍♀️ DC never gets the phone or the iPad.
Obviously it’s easy for me to limit it that much with only having one DC so far. When there’s an older one that enjoys the tv it must be much harder to limit it for the younger ones.

I just think it totally depends. I feel like an hour and a half is quite a bit for a one year old - but if it’s an hour and a half in between doing fun activities, going out and about, playing with a parent, reading storybooks etc, then I think it’s unlikely to be harmful. If it’s a full day at nursery followed by coming home and watching telly for an hour and a half then going to bed I think it’s really not great.

Eh?! People who have childcare do usually look after their kids all day at weekends?! Not sure that has much to do with it to be honest. More to do with daily routines/habits? Obviously throw in sickness bugs etc habits might change temporarily. I think it's very much each to their own and go with what you feel comfortable with.

Under 2 the guidance is none. We didn't have the TV in the main room where the toys were so older kids went off to watch it elsewhere.

1.5 hours each day is too much for such a young child, it is not that it harms them directly, but it stops them from doing other things that are better for their emotional, physical and educational development. TV holds them back.

pardon the phrase but “never did us any harm” 🤣 I was a late 80s early 90s kid and remember watching a fair bit of tv - watching a full film then sitting waiting for the video to rewind so I could watch it again…. Then again probably 🤣
I think the main issue is probably with tablets these days, I know how addictive I find watching reels. But at the same time children can learn a lot from watching kids YouTube. It’s a hard balance. Some days my kids have tv on most of the day, in the background when they’re playing then other days we barely have it on. I think it’s about balance - so long as the time you have with them is quality time, where you’re connected and playing and interacting, too much tv isn’t going to be detrimental to them. And sometimes you just have to get through the day and tv helps!

I think it’s down to the individual child and circumstances.

My DD is hard work if she’s had a lot of screen time, especially if it’s in the morning. At 14m she watched very very little TV, probably half an hour a week but she was always content entertaining herself in other ways.

Sometimes though, we do what we have to do to muddle through a situation and I wouldn’t worry unduly about the TV time your DC has had.

I know two absolutely brilliant young adults (bright, ambitious, kind) who watched an absolute ton of TV from being young babies. At the time I wondered if it might be harmful but it really does not seem to have been!

Please don’t panic about it especially if you’ve had PND and perhaps anxiety as part of that. I had zero screen time before 3yrs old with 2 under 2. Now I think why did I make my life so hard!

My 3 yo - probably an hour a day on average? And that's tv. Definitely not tablet! Some days it's a bit more, eg if we've nothing planned and we've got lots to get on with so she needs to be entertained, in which case we'll put on a film, and some days none at all. I'm not "anti television" though as long as they have plenty of other interests

Yeah you're right @MGee123. I was generalising hugely there. Childcare days are easy for me personally as I just go to work and don't need to think about entertaining my youngest. Weekends are pretty easy for me to avoid screens as my husband is around to share the load. I find rainy weekdays relentless but appreciate that's very specific to me! I mentioned nursery as our next door neighbours do zero screentime (which makes people feel guilty when they constantly bang on about it!) but also do ft nursery so don't have the awful weekday rainy days to contend with.

Same. I never limited my kids screen time when they were little. They are both in their 20s now and despite all the Daily Mail warnings their language did progress beyond the Teletubbies 'eh-oh'

Do what you want/need - a lot of people lie about screen time because it's one of those things parents seem to be judged on; in reality, no one gives a shit. Same with Fruit Shoots/sweets/snacks/mcD's - if these things were as unpopular as MN would have you believe they would've went bankrupt years ago 🤷🏻‍♀️

My daughter is 29 my sons are 27 and 22 …they definitely were chucked in front of the TV for a few hours a day ! All high achievers and full on functioning adults !

I’ll be honest - my TV is on for like the whole day - not religiously watched but more as background noise. Daughter is 2.5 and this has always been the case since she was a baby.
She has a tablet now which I have limited to one hour a day. To be honest I’ve never really thought of the TV being on as “screen time” and I’m now thinking I need to start turning it off!

TV more than existed 20 years ago.

I don’t think the poster meant that - I said something similar. But if your child is in nursery for example from 8-6.30, then comes home and watched 1.5 hours of telly before going to sleep, they are accessing basically no one on one adult attention during the week. Not being supported to play in their own environment, not chatting with parents with focused attention on them etc. I don’t think that sounds great. But if they’re at home most days with lots of parental attention in the morning and then an hour of telly in the afternoon followed by attention in the evening it’s a different situation.

@Suziesz
Yes I know that.
I’m referring to phones, tablets, hand held consoles etc

A lot of nursery children are too tired to play after a full day of nursery, they’ve had a full on day of stimulation and interaction from adults and peers and it wears them out. Sometimes they need to just relax and watch tv when they get in. I think it very much depends on your child though.