The Great TV Reducing Challenge Days 3-6

Sorry about the few day delay in these posts, I have had a super busy few days! I had a cake to bake and decorate this weekend, a website to edit, a website to design/create, a house to clean, grocery shopping to do, and children to watch since my husband had a training course this weekend. Nevertheless, I will fill you all in on how we did during these days of the challenge.

Day 3: Developing Coping Strategies

Friday morning, I woke up with Nolan to find about 6 inches of snow on our walkway. Since Rowan was still asleep, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to get the shoveling done. So I got Nolan his breakfast, put on a movie, and headed out to shovel. Once I got back inside, Rowan was babbling in his crib, so I got him up and nursed, then got his breakfast for him. When he was finished eating, we turned off the movie (it was about half way through), and headed downstairs to Nolan's room to play. While the boys played, I gathered some old paper towel tubes, tape, and scissors, and made Nolan a car track going down the stairs to his bedroom. Rowan went down again for his nap around 11, while Nolan and I continued to play with his car track and train set, as well as tidy up his room again. Once Rowan woke up, it was time for lunch and some dancing to the radio, then we went down to Nolan's room for more cars, trains, drawing, and playing in general, until around 4:00 when both boys went down for their afternoon nap.

We made it through the day with about 2 movies (a  movie and a half with dad while I was preparing supper), but a lot of new ideas of things to do without having the television on.

Day 4: Cheat Day #1

Saturday was definitely a cheat day, as it was a very busy day for me, and Matt was out of the house at a training course so I had no one to watch the kids while I got things done. As much as I hate to use the TV as a babysitter, sometimes it is the only way I can meet deadlines that have otherwise come up too quickly. Such is life when you are a work-at-home-mom! The best part about Saturday, though, was when I got up with Nolan. Instead of asking to put a movie on, like he normally does, he asked me to come downstairs and play trains with him! Which means that my challenge is not only working on me, but on the kids as well. I went and played trains with him for a while until his brother woke up, then after we ate breakfast the television came on so that I could get the things done that I needed to.

Day 5: Cheat Day #2

Matthew was home today, but since he had essentially worked 6 out of the 7 days this week, I decided it would be okay to allow him to relax with the boys and not have to do too much today. I still had lots to do, so just needed the boys out of my hair, and dad did an excellent job doing such. They didn't sit and watch movies all day, but one was in the background all day while they played around together. By the end of the day, though, our house was a disaster zone, and I was seriously dreading it being the end of our weekend.

Day 6: Momma Just HAD to Clean

As much as I hate to admit it, we watched a lot of movies again yesterday. I got as much cleaning as I could do while they were eating and napping, but still had plenty to do while they were awake too. As much as I could, I got away with having them upstairs listening to the radio and dancing around with me, as well as playing with bowls and other kitchen things. By the end of the day, my house was looking considerably better, though we had put I think 4 movies on. A lot more than I would have liked, but hey - not every day will be ideal or perfect, and we are still improving, so I am still happy with how we have been doing.


As our challenge winds down, I am reflecting and learning more than I expected to. I am learning to cut back on television, but am learning new strategies to keeping it off as well, and also that there are some days that the television is going to be on, so not to beat myself up too badly when it happens. Tomorrow is always a new day, a new opportunity to have the television off, and a new chance for better days. My goal is always to do at least 1% better than the day before, and I have learned that there are many ways that I can do better than I did yesterday. Even if I didn't watch less television than yesterday, there is some other way I have grown as a mom, or a person, that has made me at least 1% better than who I was yesterday, and I will absolutely call that a success!

How has the challenge gone in your house, these past few days?

The Great TV Reducing Challenge Day 2

Day Two - The Write-off

Today has not been a good day. It had such promise when Nolan quietly stayed out of Rowan's room while I was nursing this morning, and when Rowan subsequently fell back asleep for a bit. I made some yummy baked pears for breakfast while Nolan begged me to watch the Fox and the Hound. That was when Rowan woke back up and my day turned into shit, and when I began to behave in a way I was far less than proud of. Within a few minutes of being awake, Rowan got his hand slammed into the hinge side of a door (which is more painful than the other side), and would not stop screaming. While I do not normally believe in time-outs, I was far too angry to give an effective time-in, so a time-out on the stairs until Nolan was ready to apologize led to him screaming his head off, too. Which led to mommy letting out a big scream, stomping to my room, slamming two doors, and banging my head on a wall a few times. I know, right? Really productive, and super helpful - like I said, none too proud of my behaviour this morning, and wish I could have held myself together a bit better for the sake of my boys. After my few moments to try to chill out, I came back down to my boys to apologize and serve their breakfast, and try to turn the day around.

After eating, we turned the radio on and listened to music while building puzzles for a bit, then I bathed the boys and got them dressed to help kill time before Rowan's first nap. During his nap, Nolan and I had a snack, read some books, and cleaned up his bedroom. I then cooked him lunch, and as he finished eating Rowan woke back up, so I cooked his lunch for him. Once both were fed, we played down in Nolan's room for a couple hours until it was time for the boys' afternoon nap which was at 4:00. Thankfully, we made it to this point in our day without having turned the television on at all! Which means that I am easily within reach of my one-movie-per-day goal today, so I am pretty proud to be there after only 2 days of my challenge.

What now? Well, I have 5 days to go, and have reached my 1 movie a day goal, but today was a nightmare. It was stressful to say the least, so I guess my goal over the next 5 days is to make it easy to not watch TV with my boys. I want to develop better ways to entertain us without going crazy in the process. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

Feel free to post the progress of your own TV Reducing Challenge in the comments below!

The Great TV Reducing Challenge Day 1

I have a confession to make: my family watches entirely too much television. There are some days that there is a movie playing in the background from the time we wake up, until my boys go to bed. Not that it is being watched every minute it is on, but I am still now proud of how often it is on. It was not always like this, and I am ashamed of myself for allowing it to get to this point. Currently, my boys are 27 months and 10 months old, and we have been using television in such a fashion since my youngest was about 4 months. The history behind this increase in television watching, was a severely stressful event in our family life, during which time I was very close to postpartum depression. Anything that could help us get through the day was a God sent, though as many of you know - it can be hard to kick the crutch when it is no longer 'needed'.

Which leads me to today, and the decision that our crutch needs to go! Over the next 7 days, I will be posting about our progress. Hopefully by next Wednesday, we will have reduced our screen time to a maximum of one movie a day, and will have developed plenty of ways to get through the days without our television. I invite you to join me if this is something you feel is an issue in your own home, and I hope that you all will hold me accountable to actually reduce our amount of television watching. Please wish me luck, and grant me the peace and serenity to make it through the next week while ridding ourselves of television.

Day 1 - It Begins

Today certainly could have gone better, but I will be easy on myself and admit that it could have been a WHOLE lot worse! Especially when (in retrospect) I might not have chosen the best day/week to begin such a challenge. After waking up, my boys and I played, made and ate our breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, and listened to music together (with some dancing of course!) until Rowan went down for his first nap around 11:00. Things at that point had been a little frustrating, I had to get breakfast ready while attempting to keep Nolan off the counter, dogs from under feet, and at the same time trying to keep Rowan from pulling my pants down or playing with the garbage (ooh the pulling up/furniture cruising stage, what's not to love). Once he was down, Nolan and I did some colouring, and played with our cat. Things went downhill from there.

At around noon, Nolan began trying to get into stuff he knew he was not supposed to play with, which led to some whining and crying that woke Rowan up early from his nap. Not proud of it (and it is hard to admit it, so please do not judge too harshly), but this led to me getting upset and yelling. Their dad and I had been up several times through the night with both of them, and after a couple of days of having too much to do to shower, I was feeling a little less than human this morning. No, this is not an excuse, and I was wrong so apologized to them both for shouting. Rowan was very clearly not ready to be awake yet, but was not interested in laying back down. At this point, lunch needed to be made, so asked Nolan what he would like to do while I cooked. He asked to watch Peter Pan (ugh), but since I had to cook I put it on so I might be able to get lunch finished quicker. This was at around 12:30, so we made it until then without turning it on. Not too bad for the first day, especially when they both ended up in the kitchen about half way through the movie to 'help', and did not watch the full thing. After we ate (from scratch chicken nuggets, ask if you want our recipe), the boys and I danced around and played more until about 3:15 at which time both boys went down for their afternoon nap.

I have snuck on during their nap to type up this post, while wondering how the rest of our day will go. They will be getting up not too long before my husband gets home from work, and he would typically watch a movie with them to unwind from his day while I cook supper. I think that I will allow that to still happen, and aim for that to be the time of day that television is watched, if at all (during the summer we will definitely be outside during that time).

Well, that means that by the end of today, we will have only watched 2 movies (and I will update this if that ends up not being true). Which is not too bad. Still more than I would like, but not bad. It seemed like the day went by pretty quickly, which I am thankful for, but I was pretty stressed out today. I think tonight I will work up a list (and prepare anything I can do beforehand) of things that I can do with the boys tomorrow to keep us busy. I also want to dig out The Hobbit so that I can begin reading it to the boys, and set aside a reading time every day to help get them more into books and not as into the screen.

Are you going to join me on my 7-day television reducing challenge?