How much tv does your 3-5 year old watch?
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Anonymous
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We dont limit TV. He has no access to other screens like phones or tablets- anything that is highly interactive. He will be 4 in 2 months and we just started doing some FaceTime with my Dad and his uncles. When we decide to introduce tablets we will limit TV time.
Some days its only 20-30 minutes. Other days its 3/4 hours total. He will watch a whole movie. We definitely encourage shows with educational aspects vs hype shows, although Bluey, my personal favorite, is probably more a hype show than I would like. 
He averages 2-6 hours outside a day even during the winter. We go to museums, go on hikes, check out playgrounds every weekend, etc. I think we are all doing our best with what we have at our disposal. He is an only and that comes with its own drawbacks- he has all of our attention but he doesnt have anyone outside of us to engage in parallel/direct play. Because he is under 5 we are still dealing with closures, quarantines, testing and staying home until cleared while maintaining 2 FT jobs and no family help. I have friends who can call in Grandma or even Aunts/Uncles to take the day but thats not a possibility for everyone. I am actually more conservative for phone use vs TV. Our child will not have a smartphone until high school and I know I am in the minority about that. |
Anonymous
| I limit my almost seven-year-old to an hour a day. He’d watch all day if I let him. My five-year-old doesn’t watch any at all - he says he doesn’t like TV. Three-year-old isn’t much interested either. But my oldest is definitely a TV addict and TV has to be limited. |
Anonymous
| If I had a nanny, my kids would literally never watch TV. They watch 1 hour per day, which I use to cook/clean/phone errands. It’s like the thing I‘m most jealous of people who have childcare. |
Anonymous
Same here. But I will not abide any amount of Cocomelon or Daniel Tiger. |
Anonymous
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I do not like having the TV on during the day and my DH and I are not big TV watchers. But we have a 4 yr old and I have to lean on the TV sometimes. It's gotten much better since DC started PK and is at school 6 hours a day. But I work PT and my hours are variable and when I'm busy that's all I get done while she's at school. DH is often gone for close to 12 hours a day. I am actually proud of how little TV my kid watches because it's the one thing guaranteed to occupy her for an indefinite amount of time and that's such a gift when you are on your own with a small child for so much of the day and you have to get things done or just need a minute to think.
But it's really work to do it and I can't all the time. You have to really plan ahead and be very organized to make it work. Even if the goal is for your kid to do free play. A baby or toddler will just play with whatever and can easily entertain themselves. But a 3 or 4 or 5 year old often needs some guidance. If I can take a few minutes and set out some activities before she gets home, that can help. Or if I have some leeway with my schedule I can arrange it so the activities I'm doing when she's home are the things it's easiest to do with her. I do involve her in laundry and cooking and errands when I can. But of course there are times when that's just not efficient or realistic. And then there are so many tasks that are just me sitting on my computer paying bills, researching something for my MIL, putting together a shopping list. You can't do that while a child is saying "play with me play with me play with me I'm bored." The ability to say "here is a 25 minute episode of TV, when it's over we will go to the playground" or whatever is a godsend. The part I hate most, though, is the way people act like letting your kid watch TV is some failure. That's insane. I don't love letting my kid watch TV simply because we don't like TV that much (I also really struggle to find decent children's programming that is age appropriate, 99% of it is just garbage or it's too scary or she just doesn't like it for whatever reason). But it's not a failure, it's survival. The standards for parents are so ridiculously high these days. I feel like we've lost all sight of what we're doing with raising kids. |
Anonymous
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None at all during the week or during the day. My kids are 5, 3 and 14 months. After the baby goes to bed on Friday do Saturday nights, my older boys watch a show or movie with us. During the week the 5 yr old is in kindergarten until 3 and the 3 yr old until 12:30 and when they come home they read or play.
Important note: we gave a truly great nanny from 830 to 4:30 every weekday who has always engaged them in some activity and always gave them “independent play” so they learned how to do it. Second important note is that DH and I both work from home and divide cooking and cleaning chores 50/50 if not him doing more and we have no commute. Third, we have a great deep cleaner once a week. Fourth, we order those prepared meal packages four days a week. |
Anonymous
| My 4 year old and 9 year old don’t have and never had limits on screen time. Both of my kids started reading before they turned 4 and my 9 years old is way ahead of her peers in Math. We are from Europe and I think Americans are obsessed with no tv rules. |
Anonymous
Why would you have a second kid with that loser DH. |
Anonymous
| We’ve taken the approach with our 4.5yo of regularly scheduled TV (20-25 minutes after lunch and dinner, contingent upon eating a decent meal) and nothing beyond that. So she doesn’t ask for it at other times, just plays with us or independently. Hoping to keep it up. When she starts real school she won’t get the TV after lunch on weekdays but we’ll probably start family movie night on Fridays to compensate. |
Anonymous
We are from Europe too and think Americans eat their kids watch way too much TV and have the TV on constantly!! Americans, in my opinion, need more rules! |
Anonymous
| Eh, i know we try to be good parents, and we do everything else right, but we are pretty lax about tv. Many times, its a choice between the two kids about to get a concussion from rough playing, or tv..I choose tv, sometimes out of my own sanity. At some point I do want a no tv during school nights rule..but we are not there yet and thats ok. My 1st grade son loves reading, and learned some math concepts watching number blocks. |
Anonymous
| My firstborn has seen 20-30 mins 3ish times a week since age 20 months (I kbad mommy). If I’m having trouble getting the baby down at night, I put a video on my phone. I hate it bc she’s always reluctant (to put it mildly) to give it back when the baby is down so I’m really trying to cut back even from this amount. We don’t have a tv in the bedrooms or main level so she never gets background tv. I’ve told my husband he isn’t allowed to show her media and that the screen is only for me in an emergency when I’m managing them both. Other than those restrictions, I’m not sure how else to limit it if the baby needs some coaxing at night to sleep. Ideas welcome! |
Anonymous
As the mom of tweens, this isn’t worth your angst. Allow her episodes of educational/curated by you shows, and when they go off, the TV gets turned off. As pps noted, if you are doing all of the other things “right”, this will not matter. |
Anonymous
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None.
We don’t need the childcare and my son is only 4. |
Anonymous
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About 1 hour per day for my four year old. I’ve worked really hard to keep her off screens and teach independent play. I made all the mistakes with my tween and will not be repeating them.
Children should play independently so parents can do their own tasks and children should be helping with those tasks from a young age. |