I’m on a pretty gruelling schedule at the moment..

Last night for example, my wife went to bed around 11pm as usual..

Now my baby wakes at around midnight and fusses and grumbles over a feed for an hour or so, so after I’d quickly tidied away the worst of the days detritus, had a cup of tea and settled down for the evening it wasn’t really worth kipping til after he’d had his grub..
This left me to turn in about 2am, with a couple more occasions during the night where I had to settle him back to sleep again, followed by him waking up properly around 6.30am for his breakfast, which is my cue to get up and start the day..

I sleep downstairs on the sofa with our little bundle of joy, his mum needs a good night’s rest, she works long hours and is susceptible to post natal depression, so she needs her beauty sleep.. So as we can plainly see, I am burning the candle at both ends here.. And also perhaps a bit in the middle.. And I’m probably leaving it too close to the stove so that it melts, and I’m leaving it burning overnight too, dangerously near to flammable stuff..
This has the knock on effect that during the day, I can be a bit vacant, impatient, tetchy.. I’m not known for being moderate or even tempered..

So as a result, there’s often two or three days in the week where my nerves are a bit too jangly for the day to day joys of answering the endless questions of an intelligent and inquisitive three year old.. And dealing with the baffling and sometimes constantly ferocious displeasures of an eight month old child’s frustrations as he fumbles his way through our beguiling world, becomes laborious and disheartening..
Should I feel like a bad parent, when on those two or three weary and dejected days, the TV goes on and I sit quietly in the corner gazing into the meditative stare of the laptop’s screen..?
How many of you guys out there grudgingly accept the inevitability of TV in your kids life..?

EDIT: this little stream of conciousness was interrupted just before I asked the main question, as youngest son had exploded copious amounts of poo out the back of his nappy as he practised shuffling around the carpet on his bum.. leaving an interesting slug trail of sloppy goo, like a giant poo snail.. Delivering a particularly charming piece of toast, with a good smear of faecal pate and a big clump of hair, like something from a Ren and Stimpy scene.. 8)

CBBC is currently on, and my 18 month old is running about with one of my cameras taking photographs of things in the living room… 4.5 hours sleep and a full day planned!

Some days it does catch up with you a bit, and I also get tetchy… which is absolutely not my modus operandi normally 😉 Still, all seems worth it when he comes running across the living room and gives me a big hug.

Just looking forward to getting him on a bike for some adventures 😉 The wee one (2 months old) will be a bit longer (and is snuggled up in bed with Mum at the moment). We seem to have fallen into a pattern of I look after the older one and she looks after the wee one at the moment, and I try to give her as much of a chance of sleep as possible. Looking forward to the day when I can get a lazy morning lie-in though!

How many of you guys out there grudgingly accept the inevitability of TV in your kids life..?

Do it. The first few years are hugely important to the relationship between you and you don’t want their memories to be of a permanently grumpy dad. we were in the same boat and thought we never would but thankfully gave up on that quickly. Sleep is a fantastic thing

Mickey mouse Clubhouse on Disney Junior. Sky is a godsend when you have kids 😉

And TV isn’t all bad – my 5 yr old keeps asking for sport candy (fruit) and to go to bed at 8:08 thanks to Sporticus.

You’re all lovely husbands. Nothing wrong with kids tv for a bit. It’s actually quite good fun and much more educational these days.

don’t feel bad – this is what tv was actually invented for.

i think you’re doing more than enough to allow the tv to offer you all a little escape.

Get to bed early evening, and wake up when you need to.

And nothing wrong with the TV.

How many of you guys out there grudgingly accept the inevitability of TV in your kids life..?

I gleefully welcome the assistance of TV in my kid’s life. I regularly find myself dragged downstairs at WTF-o’clock by my 4yo son, I just whack Cbeebies on and pass out on the sofa until I’m capable of coherent thought. Thank **** for TV, I say.

OK in small doses, but my gut feeling is that too much TV is short term gain for long term pain.
My kids would watch TV for hours, given the chance. However, they will also sit and read books, make up games and amuse themselves, partly, I think, because they have learnt to deal with boredom and develop an attention span, rather than getting a lot of instant gratification from TV.
That’s an unscientific view, but I think there have been a couple of studies recently suggesting that it was better to limit exposure for very young kids.
TV has its place, but everything in moderation, I guess.

EDIT: this little stream of conciousness was interrupted just before I asked the main question, as youngest son had exploded copious amounts of poo out the back of his nappy as he practised shuffling around the carpet on his bum.. leaving an interesting slug trail of sloppy goo, like a giant poo snail.. Delivering a particularly charming piece of toast, with a good smear of faecal pate and a big clump of hair, like something from a Ren and Stimpy scene..

I’ll post a proper response when i’ve stopped laughing at this 😆

Yup, nothing wrong with TV* – our offspring is obsessed with Come Outside, as a result she now knows how teapots and brushes are made, and tends to say “Oh, I say!” a lot.

*Obviously as long as it’s not all they do.

I learned all I know about parenting from Outnumbered, so it probably evens out.

We all do it.Don’t beat yourself up about it. It also means you can watch more “grown up” stuff like Phineas and Ferb as they get older, which can be pretty funny.

On the flip side – we do take them out most weekends somewhere or other, otherwise it’s all they would do.

I have 2 pretty lovely teenagers. Well one isn’t 13 until Monday but you know what I mean.

OK being boastful they are bloody amazing. Both top 3 or 4 in their school years academically. Well balanced and do well inlots of situations. Daught probably does do to much screen time at the moment but she does have post viral fatigue

We have made no serious attempt to control acces to telly ever. Well we probably banned it being on all day but they certainly watched every day probably twice a day. My wife was strict about not having on things like soaps on in the day when the kids were around

we had some tough times (nothing like your describing) we just did everything to make life easy and have no regrets. I of course mean that in a concerned middle class way not a not a tv in the bed room and unlimited DVD way

Personally I’d try and sleep before the first feed. I survived on sleep effeciency, getting in out of sleep quicly to maximise sleep time

When you kids are say 5 and 8 and life is calmer and you both have energy you might want to try work harder on bringing then up. But at the moment you are on max parenting stress so feel free to make life easy

Thanks for the reassurances everybody..

I really try to get a kip in the evening, and if I sit down on the sofa I’m snoring within moments..
But I find it quite bloody hard to relinquish that few hours of my day when I’m child free, to waste it sleeping..

what a bloody palavah..

Mrs Yunki is away this weekend so I have the boys to myself, which at least means I get to sleep in the bed
8)

My 17 month old daughter has no interest in TV whatsoever. There are times (generally around 5.30am) when I wish it were otherwise…

Unless Mrs Y is an incredibly light sleeper I recommend that you use the bed too. (Mrs S swears our youngest didn’t wake up after 16 months, he did just she never heard him! A 12 hour shift after a 3am wake and a leave home at 5:15 left me a tad fractious some days). I can still sleep anywhere at the drop of a pin though.

Someone more clever than I said “This too will pass” and it is true but waiting for it to pass can feel like hell.

Hmm – so what does your wife do with the baby, when she’s turfed you onto the couch and leaving you to do all the night time stuff?

I have three kids – we always split the kid stuff down the middle. Neither of us or our relationship would have survived, if it had been otherwise.

ah man I sympathise. had two years of really bad sleep deprivation and appreciate how much it can screw you up. our daughter’s now 4 and we tend to allow half an hour or so telly a day. actually its stuff on iPlayer as we don’t have a box. i reckon she’d watch it for hours if we let her, scary how it can totally mong them out.
good luck!

As long as it isn’t the default ‘solution’. Recently noticed that if we don’t put the tv on, our girls generally don’t ask for it and make games up (3.5yrs old). Still it is good when you need to get on (ie, cooking dinner, cleaning etc).

Just do it, my kids watched tv when they’re were younger and it is a godsend.

However I do agree with ‘default’ mode. Mine now are very active and fortunately we live in a small estate so they are always outside playing..

I don’t think you need to worry about being a poor parent, of you were you would have left the poo snail in the nappy and not done anything. Yes you maybe grumpy sometimes, but you are also the one that is there when they need one of the many things a child needs.

We have just got in from a week long holiday where there was no tv or wifi.
It was me that missed it more than the kids I think! They just did other stuff.
It made me realise how much I sometimes rely on it to entertain the boys if I am busy cooking dinner or something.

Hmm – so what does your wife do with the baby, when she’s turfed you onto the couch and leaving you to do all the night time stuff?

I have three kids – we always split the kid stuff down the middle. Neither of us or our relationship would have survived, if it had been otherwise.

Amazed this wasn’t asked further up. I’ve never heard of this kind of thing before and I’d be worried about the precedent it sets.
I have two kids (14, and 11), we split everything down the middle irrespective of other stuff. I also worked long hours during the baby years, with a lot of driving, I received no leniency and didn’t expect any. We may have shuffled the feed shifts around a bit sometimes if one of us was particularly struggling, but never ever was one reduced to sleeping on a sofa!

different strokes I guess. Good luck 🙂

Haven’t read all of that, but I’d be dead if I had that little sleep. You probably need to give yourself a break, if tv allows that to happen, then so be it. It’s not like your waiving any rights to limiting tv consumption in later years/months/days.

My two kids (now 9 and almost 6) have been “entertained” by CBeebies from day one – now they are older they watch a fair bit of CBBC. It used to be on in the background most of the time when they were in the house.

They have both grown up to be bright, articulate young things with a healthy knowledge and curiosity in the world, people, numeracy, literacy and simple science/mechanics.

Friends and relatives did the same thing with their kids, only letting them watch mindless cartoons on Sky/ITV, or the same favourite DVD over and over again. Most of their kids have turned out to be dull, selfish, ignorant and disruptive.

Allowing for some over generalisation and parental bias, my point is that not all TV – even in large amounts – is a negative thing.

yunki – it gets better 😆

ours are 18. 9 and 6. TV has always been useful and when they were wee, a real godsend to keep them entertained. Eldest has just started Law at Uni, boys are similarly bright, very active, ride bikes, play footie, swim, tae kwon do etc, so loads of exercise. It’s all about a balance, some days they are very active, yet today the boys are still playing in pj’s with Playstation and toys etc. They will probably do this most of the day, until 9 yr old has swim lessons at 630 tonight. But yesterday we were all of out at 9, mum and eldest boy to club footie league, me and junior to swim lessons

I did wonder about your mention of sleeping downstairs on sofa with junior – if this is regular maybe horsing him into a room on his own would improve his sleeping ? At 8 months ours were generally in their own rooms and sleeping a good 8 hrs right through. No idea of your circumstances, so if this is pish forgive me !

We don’t have a TV, but I thought a few episodes of something on iplayer might be a good idea at about 16 months. Daughter subsequently refused to eat or nap unless she could watch it. No more TV for a few months I think. Music is on all the time though 🙂

The thing about tv, is that whilst it’s pretty clear from the research evidence that all other factors ignored, not watching tv is better for young kids than watching it, hence various official recommendations in many countries that under twos shouldn’t watch any, and older kids should have it seriously limited. Any excuses we all make like that cbeebies is okay and itv makes kids braindead are just excuses.

But in practice, the effect of tv is way less than the effect of having parents who have a mental breakdown, or super stressed and angry parents, so there are obviously some situations where the child is going to be better off overall by being sat in front of the tv, hence we all do it sometimes. I had a bad point once where I did a whole work conference call whilst Rose was plugged into Waybuloo. It wasn’t as good as playing with her would be, but overall she is better off by me having a job than not.

One thing that does come quite strongly out of the research as I understand it, is that sitting watching tv with a parent actively watching it and talking about it is way less bad than sitting them in front of it and leaving them, or having it on in the background.

How many of you guys out there grudgingly accept the inevitability of TV in your kids life..?

One day they will be able to wake up to go downstairs on their own and turn it on

All things in moderation IMHO