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Well, with our toddler’s sleep, anyway. I mentioned yet more recent studies on the effect of too much television and calls to ration children’s access to TV a couple of posts ago. That sort of report makes us twitchy – we know that when we’re tired or when he’s being difficult, letting him watch a video or play a game is an all too attractive option to get us a little peace and quiet for a few minutes. Or an hour. I say us but when (as is the case with supermum at the moment), you’re run down, drained and coping during the day by yourself, it can be the only recourse you have in the abscence of the more traditional extended families that might have helped out in days gone by (Q: “What did families do before television?” A: “There were more of them and they lived in the same building.”) We were fairly balanced, I think, until the period of time after he broke his leg when he inevitably spent a lot of time watching DVDs and television.
For the last month, he’s been hyperactive at bedtime and skipping bathtime most nights a week. We’ve both been too tired to argue (there’s a lot going on in our lives at the moment). He’s also been waking up early, waking up at various times throughout the night and has altogether become a handful. So after the nudge of the most recent “TV is destroying your children’s development” articles, we imposed a ban on TV after 6pm (bedtime routine starts at seven). Two nights in, and the routine is back, his sleep patterns are less disturbed and he’s relaxed about staying in his bed until getting up time if he wakes up a little early.
This isn’t an old story. A quick Google shows that research into links between TV and sleep (or lack of it) has been throwing up suggestive results for some time. The University of Michigan Med Centre pages suggest a maximum of two hours a day (which seems generous but are very firm about TV at bedtime:
Don’t let your child watch more than one to two hours of TV during the day, and don’t let them watch TV at bedtime at all. TV viewing at bedtime has been linked to poor sleep.
All I can say is that the new regime works for us. It’s easier getting him off to sleep – and more fun! Instead of an hour and a half’s battle royal, there’s forty five minutes of cuddly interaction (and a small amount of good-natured prevarication – I’d be worried if he wasn’t making some sort of protest). My turn this evening – fingers crossed!
Filed under: parenting, sleep issues, sleeping, toddlers | Tagged: sleep, television, TV
Makes sense…
I had a similar struggle with my two girls when they were little. But I do think the evening bath helps to relax the little ones and helps them sleep better.
Also, do you have a fenced yard or other play area where he can wear himself out for a hour or so??
With all our grandparents and extended family living on another continent, we also tend to use the telly as a bit of a babysitter. However, we do avoid it at bedtime and focus on the bath, read, kiss routine.
The good news is: it gets easier! Our seven-year-old comes downstairs to kiss us goodnight when it’s her bedtime, closes her curtains, switches off her light and goes to sleep. It’s bliss.
I thought I would never let Snowflake watch TV. At around the age of two(he’s now just over three) I did because he came to work with me and it was a way of getting things done. Although he only watched Noggin’ or Sprout and the like, you could definitely see a change in his behavior…bratty, aggressive, not paying attention when asked a question.
I cut the TV(minus a few select videos and PBS once in a while) and I am definitely going to try your suggestion of no TV after 6pm. What time does Dudelet normally go to bed then? Snowflake and I co-sleep and we usually go to bed at the same time(sometime around 9pm). I know this needs to be earlier, but I feel bad because we get so little time to hang out at night after work. The perils of the single mamma…
I agree with it completely. TV makes babies fussy.
Well, Z. watches no TV (really!) and she still has terrible bedtime fusses. We have had to say no drawing after dinner, no non-sleepytime books after dinner, no toys after dinner, even no laundry after dinner. And she still resists sleep. (She is 2 however–perhaps at dudelet’s age she’ll be better.)
There does seem to be a consensus about this, academically and anecdotally. Suroor – do your brood react in the same way, then?
MsMama – dudelet’s ritual starts at 6:45 to 7ish and finishes around 7:30 if all goes well. He wakes up around 6:45 if he’s had a good night and dropped his nap two months back. So I suppose he sleeps for about 11 hours (we can sometimes here him chatting and humming and ‘decompressing’ until nearly eight). At least there’s two of us to keep up the struggle – like you say, being a single mom is tough.
Sheila – I’ve no idea! Only got the one to go on!
Mizmell – we have a yard (a shared garden) but he needs close supervision in it, mostly due to the steep stairs down to it.
Charlotte – well, I believe you but I’ll believe it of dudelet when I see it!
I’m very interested to hear your experience with TV at bedtime. TV is a big “no-no” in Waldorf circles, and sleep is a big thing as well. There’s even a book about the value of the 7 o’clock bedtime!
I think that what we do right before we fall asleep affects our sleep profoundly. I remember in college staying up far too late playing Tetris or Civilization, and dreaming about the screens and sleeping poorly. I’m sure it’s even worse for children who are that much more impressionable than adults.
Of course every child and family is different, as we can see from the comments here, but I think it’s fairly consistent that TV is not conducive to sleep or positive behaviors (other than being quiet and still when parents need a break — certainly not something to do very often but sometimes it might be necessary for family sanity!).
Too true about what people did in a pinch before TV…I dream of living next door to the grandparents!
Wishing you continued bedtime success.
Amy watches half an hour tv before she goes to bed, either Dora or wonderpets, and it has always calmed her right down and let her know that it’s time to think about sleeping now.
she then gets two stories and goodnight. But that’s not to say that if we didn’t use Tv in the nighttime routine things might not be even better.
Personally I try not to get too hung up about experts views and suchlike, and just do what feels right.
I’m so glad you said this. Because this national turn off the TV week, and so many bloggers are saying they just can’t live without TV.
We do live without TV, because I too, have noticed the lack of routine, stress, and general discontent when we do have it on. So, the TV makes an appearance maybe, 1-2 hours per week — and that’s it. Another reason, with the age group of my boys, it’s difficult to find something they can all agree on — except looney tunes.
And, there are no arguments about, “Time to turn off the TV now.” It’s so much nicer without it. I think it’s great to give kids a chance to be bored and figure out something else to do. (Which, I might add usually involves tormenting a brother.)
Hey – Henitsirk, I’ve experienced that videogame overflow as well, though I think it can happen with most things that you concentrate fiercely. But TV/computer related things do leak into my sleep the most. Most freaky of all was the occasion when I woke up from a recursive dream in lisp. The programming language lisp. Lucky I ever managed to wake up!
Hi Dan. Actually, I’ve got lots of time for a particular category of expert, the ones whose views coincide with a degree of weirdly exactness with my own. Only really became an issue with dudelet in the last few month, though. Suspect testosterone development involved somewhere.
Susie, I guess the pressure is on us to provide a brother to torture, right?
[...] watch TV, and I tend to make sure my kids avoid it as much as possible. I do think it makes them hyper and irritable. And who wants to be the kill joy to say, “time to turn off the TV now?” The boys [...]
Wow, dreaming in a programming language!! When I was studying Italian in college I marked it as a turning point when I had my first dream in Italian…but to dream in a language that’s not actually spoken?
I might have done that a few months ago when I was embroiled in Wikipedia, dreaming about wikimarkups.
I just found this nice post about some of the research on the effects of TV on children:
http://notquitecrunchyparent.blogspot.com/2007/04/ancillary-impact-of-too-much-tv.html
Heinitsirk — thank you for that link. It would be much easier to turn on the TV during the afternoon witching hour. Glad to know that my suffering has a purpose.
Right, this has decided me. The TV is not going to be switched on in the afternoon until Kiko has gone to bed. I’m a lucky Mammy because his bedtime is 6pm – decided by him!! He doesn’t pay much attention to children’s television or DVDs, unless the programme is Sesame Street, but I often have the news on while he has his dinner and I wonder: “Is this awful stuff getting through to him? I hope not!” The easy answer to that worry is to switch the thing off.
He really hates bathtime too. It’s quite a struggle. He still refuses to sit down in the bath, although we’ve got a rubber mat now.
I can so relate to and sympathise with feeling frazzled and run down, by the way. I realised this morning that I had been giving Kiko my full-on, intensive attention for three solid hours. Not that I’m complaining – you’ve got to be that way with a toddler – but I suddenly realised just how tiring it was!