Hellobee Boards

As much as she wants. Which usually isn't much - maybe half a show with breakfast, and another half of a show around 4:30. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Depends on her mood. The TV is on most of the day, but she's usually engrossed in her toys or our reading. She's healthy & intelligent, and TV isn't ruining my child. I feel no guilt.

@Mrs Green Grass: yeah; like I said the research didn't weigh that much on my decision. I just don't feel like, in my anecdotal experience, TV does much good for the kid at this age - more that it's a respite for the parent. And there is value in that - but for me, I'd rather have him play on his own or take a walk, etc. instead. All but one of the toddlers we have regular interaction with watch TV regularly and it seems to be a behavioral issue with all of them in some facet or another. I'd just as soon avoid it

@lawbee11: I take zero credit! They were all from Mrs. TWine

At 2, about a half hour a day (sometimes more if we have a movie night).

At 5, ughhh...well, he gets the iPad in the morning when everyone else is asleep (so bad...) from about 5am-6 (he's always woken up at 5am). But he has some educational apps. When he has quiet time, the first 30 minutes, he reads or plays with cars quietly but the last 30 minutes, he gets the iPad again. So 1.5 hours a day, again, sometimes more if it's a movie night. We have a movie night once every 2-3 weeks.

At 3.5 years old - These days about 2-3 hours a week since we do screentime just on weekends now. Easy for us to say since the kids are in daycare full-time all week long.

@mrskc: Don't feel bad! I ramped up the screentime when I was in my third trimester, and in the newborn stage with #2 when I needed to keep #1 preoccupied, then aggressively scaled back after we found our rhythm. You do what you gotta do to make it through the day. A lot of screentime now doesn't have to mean a lot of screentime forever.

@petunia354: @Mrs. High Heels: thanks ladies! I go back and forth with feeling guilty about it. I just remind myself, that I do a lot of other stuff with him, that a little TV watching isn't going to damage him for life.

At 20.5 months its usually 35 minutes a day. Right now he's obsessed with the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD. He's totally learning from it though! He knows what sounds all of the letters make- its actually pretty cool! That's usually all he gets but last week when he was cutting a canine and in a horrible mood he watched it 2.5 times in a day!

I aim for less than 1/2 hour a day, but it's generally just song videos here and there. This didn't start til toddlerhood and actually at first I wasn't pleased that she had been introduced to youtube..but several plane rides and months later I have found a balance of using it just for certain things. Before that it was just background tv and a song video of Brown Bear Brown Bear. We still will have background tv on, or I'll watch the news, but she does not care about it or pay attention to it. I even TRIED to get her to watch tv when she was sick, and it didn't work.

On the plus side, busy beavers on youtube seriously sped up her learning of the colors. I wasn't expecting that since I've always learned that especially with the non-interactive stuff there is no benefit.

We don't have cable so the tv is never on when he's awake. He gets my phone and has 2 apps - interactive nursery rhymes etc and can watch those for 10-15 min quite happily. I know he gets some phone time at daycare (she plays songs and abc's and nursery rhymes etc).

Now my exDH has the tv on all the flipping time when it's his weekend. Usually sports or old movies. But it's. Always. On.
it really bugs me to be honest.>_<

It varies, depending on the day. I'm not really worried about it, he rarely sits still in front of it for long. He requests 8 (PBS) and the occasional Disney movie.

Most days none but some days he watches a few YouTube nursery rhyme videos or a short episode of Tayo the Little Bus (also YouTube). Never more than 30 mins a day. He's 22.5 months.

@Danizaur: yep I'm certainly not trying to guilt anyone, just explaining where I'm coming from I know if I turned it on for a show or two it would turn into more because I always have one more thing to do you know! That's just me, I lose track of time when tv is involved. So when he was itty bitty like your LO he hung out in the bouncer while I did those things. Now he tears the house apart and jumps on the bed haha

depends on the day. sometimes none during the week, sometimes a show or two. depends how much energy they deplete with their mealtime shenanigans.

weekends they will usually get at least an hour. we usually go to a friend's house for a dinner playdate and they get to watch a movie or tv show.

Way more than I like!

He had no interest until he was around 2. He usually watches about 10 minutes in the morning when we are getting ready for work.

Right now (he's nearly 2), 20-40 min a day, but this is because I'm off work for a few weeks. We'll be visiting my parents for 2 weeks and they always have the TV on, so I'm hoping to keep it under 1-1.5 hours while we're there (although 110 degrees outside might make it harder).

Typically, when we're working/he's at daycare, he gets 0-20 minutes during the week and 20-40 on the weekend - we're too busy to have TV on usually! I think it all evens out. He asks for it (right now it's "dogs?!" for Paw Patrol) and sometimes whines when we say no, but he also does that for his pacifier or cookies.

J watches one or two 20 minute Mickey Mouse shows a day. Helps me clean up after breakfast, or prepare dinner for him. I know "they" say none under 2, but honestly, I don't see the harm since he doesn't watch much. The rest of the day he plays a lot, goes out a lot, does activities, etc. And it saves my sanity when I need to get meals prepped!

She very rarely gets any during the day if she's home with me for whatever reason but as soon as DH gets in (30 mins before bath time) the TV goes on. It's not kid's shows, it's usually sport, and she watches it in between doing other stuff. For that reason, I voted 2+ hours per week. I do put kids shows on for her occasionally if she's getting bored with her toys but she's only ever interested for 5 minutes and then goes off to play again.

I don't know how much they get at daycare, I know what they say but I don't know if I fully believe them. She gets probably an hour a day total. She's usually playing though & only tunes in when the character starts to sing (Doc McStuffins/Sofia)