Does watching TV in the day affect your DC's sleep at night?

[BettyButterknife]

I have noticed a bit of a pattern with DS - I think watching TV adversely affects his sleep.

Saturday was such a miserable day we stayed at home all day. DS (2yo) watched a lot more telly than he usually does, and slept really badly that night - multiple wakings culminating in up for the day at 5.20am.

Has anyone else noticed this with their DCs? Or am I clutching at straws??

No. It's nothing to do with the tv and everything to do with lack of activity.

My children don't leep well on rainy weekends either, even if the tv doesn't go on. It's because they don't get enough exercise.

2 year old boys need to be walked every day, much like a labrador.

Hmm, I'm sure I read something about how television can reduce melatonin production by up to 30%, which would suggest it has an adverse effect on sleep. As well as the labrador thing! Which is definitely true...

Yes, TV is a stimulant. They watch pictures jumping up and down all day and then they can't turn their minds off at night.

We have discovered a website called TumbleBooks, accessed free of charge through our library's website. (We log into the library website, then link through there.) TumbleBooks is minimally animated "audio" books. It's a picture and text that lights up as the sentence is read. The picture moves a little, but not anything close to how the TV moves. The pages turn themselves or you can put it into Manual mode where they have to click to turn the page. DS (2.8) is enthralled.

I only let dd watch an hour or so after school because she will find it hard to switch her brain off and sleep otherwise

Yes.

DS didn't sleep though until we banned television and even now if we watch a bit it affects him.

However, there may be other things, like Colditz says, for example DS always sleeps worse in winter and early rises as soon as it gets really dark and that's when you're more likely to have a day in front of the TV.

We banned it for a fortnight (DS was 2.6 and DDD was 6 months)and haven't really had it on again. You could always try it.