Pittsburgh Nesties
billiburrows
member
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
another ?: TV time for 3.5 year olds?
The only thing my child will do on his own is watch TV/DVDs. We have always tried to limit his tv time to maybe 45 mins in the morning and 45 mins in the evening (unless we are on a road trip or something like that). now that he's a little older (and he is driving us crazy since he won't do anything else without us) we are thinking about allowing him more tv time.
how much tv time do you allow your children for their age?
Re: another ?: TV time for 3.5 year olds?
If it were me, I wouldn't allow more tv time just to make up for him being so attached to playing with you. My oldest is almost 4.5 and he gets just about this much tv on days where we let him watch. In the summer, he is outside and watches just one show a day (to relax with, or as a reward or something)...and those shows last about 25 minutes. There are many days he doesn't get any tv because it just honestly doesn't come up. Other days, he gets more...like today since it was raining all day he watched The Lorax in two different sittings, so maybe 45 minutes each time (I don't know how long that movie is).
TV is one of those things though where there are guidelines from the gurus, and then there are judgments made by other parents, etc. I think you should do what works for your family, but I would be careful about utilizing tv because that's the only time he allows you to get something done without him pulling on you. I didn't read your other post, but I will now...
Good luck.
Typically we do 1 show in the morning, 1 at lunchtime and 1 before bed. It basically keeps them out of trouble while we're preparing meals. Although, I have a feeling that when they're home with dad they get more TV time than that.
I pretty laid back about it and don't stress too much if they watch more than that. There are days where they probably watch double or triple that, but if you true goal is to encourage more independent play, I don't think letting him watch more TV will accomplish that.
Kids have short attention spans, so even playing by himself for 10 minutes probably seems like an eternity to him. If he comes back to you after 10 minutes after making a play doh cake, ask him to make chicken nuggets and oranges to go with it. I think the length of independent play time is something that needs to be built up.
In the summer, when it's nice, they barely watch any tv. Maybe one or two shows in the morning. In the winter, or on a crappy day, it's more. I agree with others that adding more tv probably won't help his independent play.
I try to cycle there toys. I will put some away for a couple months and when I bring them back out it's like Christmas. I got a good 40 minutes of independent play out of a little fisher price mailbox, just because it had been gone for months and now it was like a new toy.