Hi, I’m Dana Obleman. I was doing a Google search the other day about TVs in children’s bedroom and was horrified by the results. I saw one study that suggested half of American school age children have televisions in their bedroom, and one fifth of infants to the age of two have a TV in their bedroom.

Well, anyone who knows me… I have a little joke that says a TV in the bedroom ruins a marriage. Because I think what we tend to do is climb into bed, turn on the TV, stop talking, stop communicating, and watch TV until way too late, and then fall asleep. If I don’t have one in my own bedroom, I certainly would never allow one in my children’s bedroom. They don’t have one. We have one TV in this house. We all manage to share it just fine.

The problem with watching TV at bedtime is that children stay up too late. You might not even know that your child is in there watching TV. Now they’re losing out on crucial and important nighttime sleep. Again, if you know me, you know that I’m a huge advocate of children getting enough nighttime sleep. It is a high number. Right up to adolescence, children need 10 to 12 hours of nighttime sleep. That means they need to be in bed at a decent hour, especially if they need to get up early enough to make it to school.

By having a TV in the room, I think a lot of children are sneaking by watching TV later than they should. The studies are suggesting that that can lead to childhood obesity. There’s even a link to starting cigarette smoking. I think we’re just being saturated by this media, this need to always be tuned in or wired into some sort of stimulant. Again, as an adult, just look around and see how many people are on sleeping pills, and how many people you know that have sleep issues, and how many people have terrible bad habits around their sleep hygiene. Watching TV is definitely number one. People watch way too much TV when they should be sleeping.

When we are children, that is when our sleep is perfect and glorious. We go to bed and we sleep solid. We go through our cycles beautifully. We wake up energized. Then sleep starts to sort of decline as we get older. and the older we get, the worse we tend to sleep. When it’s perfect, let’s let it be perfect. Let’s let children have their childhood sleep be as wonderful as it possibly can.

If you are using a television to get your child to fall asleep, then have a good look at what might else be going on. Maybe your child just doesn’t have the right bedtime routine set up so that their body has a chance to follow with the idea of going to sleep for the night. Most people need about a half an hour of routine to wind down and get themselves in that place they need to be for sleep to come. Maybe it just requires a little bit of tweaking on a parent’s end to get a routine in place. You can do storytime, have a bath, even play a quiet board game together.

But what I’m concerned about also, especially for younger children, is that by watching television, it’s very stimulating. Even if your kid is just zoned out staring at the TV and you think it’s somehow calming, it’s not. It’s not calming at all, it’s very stimulating. When you’re trying to wind your child down, you may just be winding him up. Our rule in house is no TV after dinner. I suggest that that be a rule for everyone, that we give children a chance to wind down to enjoy the evening, and then go to sleep peacefully without any kind of prop.

That’s my little TV rant for the day. Thanks for watching, and sleep well.