Bad Mommy? TV and new bedtime routine

Lil' Monkey's fussy period is between 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm just about everyday. Sometimes it starts later, sometimes earlier. There were days though prior to finding our P/T daycare solution that I would dread this time period (some days I still do). Since I would be running on 3-5 hours of sleep, it was really hard to sit and play with him and often that wouldn't be satisfactory anyway. He wanted to be held or bounced around or just some form of physical contact.

So one day, exhausted, I sat in front of my computer with him in my lap and answered an email for work. He got super fussy and wiggly because I wasn't paying attention to him. So, I turned to my MacBook (I keep it next to the monitor for the PC) and decided to put on For the Birds, a Pixar short I had downloaded from iTunes.

He LOVED it. I mean, he was smiling at the birds chirping and the big goofy bird talking the whole time. So this became an afternoon ritual fast. Currently, except for the days when he goes to daycare, we end up sitting in front of the Mac, watching one of these shorts (maybe up to five -- I downloaded more because I was getting bored with the birds). Now he knows that when the credits come up the movie is over and starts to fuss for another one! Bright kid, but for how long? Am I killing his brain and attention span?

The AAP recommends NO television for children under two and no more than two hours for children over 2 years of age. This seems a little extreme since most people watch television to some extent these days. So I did some more research and it seems most people just quote the AAP stance on it which is proper I guess. I did, however, run across a doctor who questioned the "blanket" statement regarding television. His point was that the reason for concern about television watching was the concept of the "electronic babysitter". That just sitting children, no matter what age, in front of a television so the parent can do something was the major concern for two main reasons: 1) no supervision of what the child is really doing, 2) no interaction with real human beings.

The highlight of the AAP's concerns seems to be that early brain development requires interaction with other human beings, especially parents, to maximize growth. They're also concerned that WHAT they see on tv influences how they respond emotionally to people or objects and cause aggression later in life.

The doctor questioning the AAP's statement seems to think that 30-90 minutes of tv watching for an infant that is developing normally and is active and curious is okay. According to a study done at Tufts University, children under the age of one do not associate the emotions of those on tv with repsonses to things in real life. However, those age one and older do.

Okay, now given those arguments, am I still doing anything wrong? Monkey's on my lap, so there's SOME interaction. And the most we watch is about a half hour of shorts. Well ... until recently.

Within the past two weeks, Monkey has had 3 teeth break through and there's still another threatening it's way through his gums. So he hasn't been the happiest baby, to say the least. Bedtime has been especially horrible. Since sucking bothers him, he doesn't want to take much from his bottle or the breast. So our normal routine of getting milk drunk before bedtime is completely out. (Don't get me wrong, there's a bath thrown in there every other night and the off-bath nights, we'd just play quietly on the floor.) I let him play on the floor but he just gets more fussy and more worked up. Out of desparation one week night, I put Ratatouille into our bedroom DVD player while trying to feed him. I had something for work due the next day and wasn't yet caught up so I was hoping for a quick bedtime routine.

Monkey would drink a little, then watch a little. Wiggle around on the bed a little. Then when the bottle was done, he'd suck from the breast a little. Wiggle a little, act like he was going to sleep then start playing again or watching the movie. We did this for about 45 minutes until he finally fell asleep in my arms. (It was kinda cute actually. His head was nestled between my shoulder and head.)

Not every night, but I'd say a total of 6 nights in the past two weeks, we've done this ritual (oddly enough, I'm not sick of Ratatouille yet) and it gets longer each time. I'm starting to get very worried. I'm going to need to put my proverbial foot down and end this tv madness soon before it snowballs anymore. But my little id talks to me each night saying, "Just get him to bed this time. We'll figure out something next time. You NEED to do X, Y and Z." Tonight, this new ritual took 1 1/2 hours (only 45 minutes of that was using Ratatouille, thankfully). Our milk drunk routine took 30 minutes tops and I miss it (that's after the bath, BTW)!

Tomorrow night I'm trying the books again. He's done with the Counting Kisses book. Well, not DONE with it, but it winds him up now, whereas before he comforted him to sleep. I have some other books which I tried last night but they were just lame. I never realized how LAME the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes are. Some of them don't even RHYME! He probably doesn't care but as I was reading them I couldn't really do them justice, if you know what I mean. I have a set of Curious George books I thought we'd use when he got older, so I may try them next. I also just purchased the Where is Baby's Belly Button book which he seems to like.

If we can just eliminate the tv prior to bed, I think I'll feel less guilty and less like a bad mommy. I'm not sure the Pixar shorts in the afternoon are going away anytime soon and plus, that's really dwindled now since he started daycare. (Although, on a side note, I can't sit down at the computer in front of him anymore because he thinks we're supposed to watch movies when I do!)

In conclusion, how much television do you let your child watch and at what age? What do you do as a parent to get your child to bed? If books are involved, which books do you choose? How many books does it take? How long does your bedtime ritual take?

SIDENOTE: Monkey isn't really fond of Baby Einstein (the thing most mention in articles related to tv and infants). He prefers Pixar stuff. Not sure what that says about the TYPE of brain damage I'm inflicting upon him ...