Honesty please! How much tv do you let your toddlers watch when sick?

[eynjln]

I’m probably gonna get annihilated for this and I do feel super guilty about it!

DD is 23 months old. Her cold became a chest infection, on anti biotics as of this morning. She’s been ill for a few days, and me too with a chest infection. She’s off childcare, I have no family to help me, I can’t take her to the park or play group incase of spreading, DH works long hours and hasn’t actually seen DS since Sunday evening and I’m demented.

Yesterday I took her for a long walk, about an hour, got home and it made her cough even worse! So I didn’t want to do that again, especially as it’s so cold. And she has a low grade fever today.

She’s watched about 4-5 hours of TV today 🥺 I tried to play with her but she lasts only a few minutes and gets bored. I’m trying to stay present with the TV on, singing along and talking through what we’re watching, but it annoys her and she basically tells me to keep quiet 😂 and she’s also particular about when she wants affection, at the moment she doesn’t want any, so she’s lying on her belly on the other side of the couch while I’ve been doing a bit of reading.

and I feel so guilty!!! Are you guys the same with limitless tv when toddler is sick? She’ll usually watch an hour a day when healthy so I can cook and do chores or have a shower (unless at childcare ofc). But never this much

It's totally fine! You need to knock these guilty thoughts on the head, having a rest up with TV when you're ill and being well looked after is nothing for you to be feeling guilty over.

Thank you everyone! You’ve all calmed my mum-guilt, really appreciate your responses!😊

Honestly I'm really strict on screen time normally but when we are ill all bets are off and it's survival mode! Just get through it!

Yep, we are on day 3 of this. Read a few books. Played blocks for a 15 min break. Extra baths to loosen things up, and unlimited TV and cuddles.

My child is reading before he starts school. Now some of this is my excellent parenting .... but the two weeks he was sick and then I was and the hours and hours of DuolingoABC during that time also might have helped. 😏

You get through illness however you can.

If you feel really bad, try to stick to educational cartoons.

As much as needed. I try to put films on rather than short things but that more for my sanity.
There was one illness where she watched the same 2-4 episodes of a cartoon for 2 days. I came down with the bug and I understood. I spent 2 days sofa bound and could only focus on things I had watch a dozen times before too!

Sorry OP I know this was your thread but it's really helped me too as I'm in a similar situation! Since January my toddler has been continually ill with colds, chest infections, norovirus... my partner and I have caught everything he has kindly passed onto us! All TV rules have gone out the window, we've had the TV on for a couple of hours both morning and afternoon and similarly to you I interact with him at the same time and sing along and chat to him and he mostly ignores me 😂 he also plays in between and messes with his books/toys. Breathed a massive sigh of relief when I read the comments!

When my oldest was a toddler, he had a series of back to back viruses and watched TV almost solidly for a couple of weeks as otherwise he tried to jump around and made himself cough and throw up. He loved Numberjacks so I let him watch them foenhours and by the time he was better he recognised all the numbers and was doing simple sums and I have never felt guilty letting them watch TV since!

At 23 months, she'll learn from anything she's watching so this is probably going to put her ahead academically! 😇😉😁

I also find things like the masked singer good they are engaging enough that when she's feeling rotten but when she's feeling a bit brighter not so engaging that she will go and play.

It's CBeebies not crack cocaine

Yes! They learn so much! Numberblocks especially has done absolute wonders on all my kids. And Bluey gives them a lot of ideas for games later.

I have to say I am quite picky about what they have on - it's all quite gentle and on the younger side, even my 7-year-old will watch bluey and Duggie. No battles or car races or fighting etc, even if it's cartoony. If they get bored of that they can play - otherwise, fill your boots.

Also, we have ours on in the morning and they watch it while they have breakfast and get dressed. Then we turn it off, brush teeth and out the door. Our mornings are the calmest, snuggliest, delicious mornings, I love them. I mum-guilted hard a few years ago and said no TV before school, we can all colour and have breakfast round the table like the Waltons, and after 4 days of tearful fights and half-dressed feral gremlins I saw the error of my ways. So it's really not all that bad!

Hours and hours and hours.
It was about 20 years ago so I can confirm there were no discernable lasting ieffetcs.

Ain't that the truth

I'm not a fan of tvs- we don't even own one. But when a kid is sick and can't do much but just lie there I download whatever streaming app on the tablet and they get free reign for most of the day. It's a nice distraction from feeling rubbish.

Don't be too hard on yourself.

Toddlers are hard work at the best of times. Add illness into the mix and I switch to survival mode - whatever it takes to keep child comfortable and myself sane.

You're going a grand job x

The amount of TV my child has watched over the last 4 weeks with giardiasis has been bonkers 😬 even he is sick of Bluey now.
Really looking forward to him getting better and getting into a better routine again but when they're ill lying on the sofa what else can you realistically do