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I want to be that mother who can stand up and say I am a strong confident mother and I know what is best for my children. We breastfeed and co sleep, We listen, We include, We eat chocolate and snot smoothies, we trampoline and grow frogs, we sling, we carry and we try and understand and work with our children without resorting to punishments, threats or coercion.
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 May 2015

I'm done

Screen Free Week

Well the girls were brilliant today and played the whole time with not a mention of screens. We all went to Glasgow to vote and by the time we got home it was bedtime. Sorted for another day!!

Me on the other hand. Well I've cracked. I've had a look at facebook, I've used messenger, looked at websites and I've played a few scrabble games.  I couldn't take one more evening feeding Millie to sleep staring at the ceiling with my thoughts. 

It's 11.24pm, almost Friday and the tv is being connected as we speak and the girls will have the choice to use it tomorrow. I'd be most impressed if they chose not to but somehow, I doubt it.


As experiments go, it was interesting. The kids made the most of it and played brilliantly all the time, whilst I felt I just washed more dishes and didn't stop till I fell asleep!

I might suggest a screen free day just to keep up the pretence that it's better to be unplugged than plugged in!!



Losing the plot - Millie's clinginess tipped me over the edge today 
Meltdowns - zilcho
Breastfeeding - lambs would feed less


read about the first day here and the other days here and here


Wednesday, 6 May 2015

Midweek wobbler

Screen Free Week

I've had enough. I want my internet and my tv back. I want to be able to look stuff up when I want. I want to play scrabble. I want to go on facebook. I want to relax at the end of the night and watch crappy stress releasing American tv series's. 

Ellie's had enough. She came home from school played with the neighbour kid then out of the blue had a massive meltdown. She tried to get the TV to work, the cable had been removed, she tried to get the computer to work, the cable has also been removed, she can't find her tablet, it's been hidden. Poor girl completely lost it, started shouting and bawling, wouldn't let me touch her then ran to her bed. Little did I realise she had my phone and had found a wee pocket of 3G!!! When I took my phone back, she completely retreated inside her covers and refused to speak to me. She eventually fell asleep for half an hour. JUST BEFORE BEDTIME!! AAARRGH!!!

Maia has had enough. She nagged incessantly for her phone until I told her I didn't know where it was. She has managed to keep herself busy though playing with the lambs and having me read book after book to her. 

Millie hasn't actually asked to watch anything during the day. She's been happy to potter about with me. I'm absolutely  sure she wouldn't say no to being plonked in front of Peppa Pig. I'm not ashamed to say that her tv watching is purely for my benefit. 

Hubby gets to be on his computer all day and on the bus home so I bet he gets his fix. He's been printing stuff off from websites and reading them at night. Also I've been going to bed so who knows what he's been using!!!

I'm not sure about pushing through until Friday. It would be an achievement for us all but I'm just not sure I can manage another two days. I don't think it's fair to force the girls now. They were so keen before but now it's like a torture punishment!! I'm the one who is with them until 7.30pm, so it's like torture for me too!!!

We are all screen junkies. We like our screens. We like watching things. We like playing games. Where's the harm? There is more harm with meltdowns and freak outs and forcing the experiment to its conclusion. Really I'm not the best person to ask to continue this. Even to prove we can do it and get that sense of accomplishment. For what? Upset and resentment? 



Hmm, screen free week doesn't seem like such a great idea anymore. We were all happier before. Not feeling pushed and coerced. 

Wow! Are we addicts? 


Losing the plot -  too tired 
Meltdown - humongous and out of nowhere
Breastfeeding - fights galore


read the about the first day here and the other days here and here


Sunday, 1 July 2012

Day 2 - So almost perfect...if it hadn't been for that pesky mummy


Someone forgot to tell Millie we could all sleep in today. The other two slept a bit longer.

Perfect opportunity to sort my blog for yesterday I thought. Someone forgot to tell Millie and Maia and Ellie that mummy wanted to do that. Not change nappies, make breakfast, talk, feed, interact. Harrumph. The unreasonableness of them!!

Gave up and sorted my family out mumbling about how other people manage to do other things.

Ellie 15months
Decided to take Millie for a swimming lesson at the local pool. I say lesson but it was more of a getting used to water, which was freezing, whilst singing those songs. You know the ones...five little boobs, wheels on boobs, happy and you boob it. So not my thing!! Millie didn't cry but she didn't smile once either. Started getting her used to back swimming which is what I used to do with Ellie. When she started to fall asleep in the water sling, I knew it was time to come out.

Thankfully and amazingly she lay happily on the changing table till I was dressed, didn't complain about getting a nappy on and fell asleep during milk!! Maybe I should take her every day. So lovely to have a happy kicking baby instead of screaming lovely one!

I love how the girls are always happy to see me even though I've only been gone an hour. I think when that stops, thats when I should worry.


Ok . It would seem we are unschoolers on the tv front today. I'm tired. It's the weekend. I wanted to play a game of golf on the wii!! Which turned into finding a free month on Netflix - oh crap. Not good for a tv addict like myself. We all watch a cool vampire kids film which I miss tons of trying to calm Millie but I bet they will watch it again and again and again and again. What is it with watching things over and over? Then we find SouthPark and I am not sure but try a little. Typically it's the one where chef leaves then comes back talking very wrong about sex.  Are they all that rude? I stop that one when I hear him ask a kid for anal :-0. We opt for RugRats All Grown Up!! What a clever idea, very cool!!

Kim the twin all grown up!


By now I am getting twitchy at the amount of screen time going on and the amount of time hubby has spent in the car installing a hands free kit he got for a tenner. I try to go upstairs to post my day one blog since Millie is sitting calmly for a change but somehow the girls notice and Ellie sneakily sends Maia up to say that Millie is crying to get me to come back down and sit with them more!!

They then find spongeboob square poop. I cant bear the thought of sitting through that and need to take Millie upstairs to feed and change her anyway. By now it's 7pm. Hubby has been out in the car since after lunch and I think enough's enough. By some amazing feat of telepathy (and the scowl I give out the door) hubby comes in. He joins me upstairs whilst I'm sorting Millie's nappy and trying to work out if we can pick up tickets on a Sunday that I forgot to get for our family drama workshop (!!!!very excited) when Ellie comes up and says she is hungry. Damn. Dinner.

I can't usually manage dinner till Barry gets home from work to take over holding Millie by which time all I want to do is flop into bed. Anyway I passive aggressive sweetly say "daddy will be down in a minute to make you something". Hubby being the super dad he is agrees!! I go downstairs and see Maia has fallen asleep on the sofa (timing. The secret of good comedy apparently).

Then, I do the unthinkable. I turn off the Netflix. Ellie comes back in and realises what I have done and freaks out. I realise she is tired and hungry as well as angry that I turned it off and I try and carry her into another room whilst suggesting she gets a book for me to read but she really loses it. Starts calling me stupid and idiot and mean and horrible.


I fun chase her up the stairs but she accidentally (I hope) kicks me on the forehead. It's unbelievably sore and I have to go downstairs to stop myself 1) crying and 2) lose the plot. I can tell she wants me to go back up and connect but also she is too annoyed with me to let me so comes down and as she is unable to work Netflix yet puts on a video instead. I tell her I am going outside on the hammock and ask if she wants to join me. She says yes but only after she has watched three more things. I leave her to it and two minutes later she has calmed down and has joined me outside where we sit and chat for half an hour whilst hubby makes dinner. I decide not to push for Ellie to join us at the table. She chooses to eat in front of the tv.

After dinner Ellie and I were about to take the dog for a walk because he hasn't been out since Thursday evening but Maia woke up and became very upset at the thought of me leaving. She is just discombobulated from waking up on the sofa and I sit with her for a bit till she has calmed down and suggest that if she finishes her dinner she can join us but she doesn't want me to go out at all. Maaaan it's never easy. I start to feel stressed at the differing needs of every living thing in the house relying on me, dog included.

We eventually make it out the door and manage a few goat and troll storytellings before midges stop play.

Normally by this time, 9.30pm, it would be the end of the night but as Maia slept earlier, she is not ready for bed. I can tell Barry is itching to get the girls to bed so he can go out and is getting antsy so I tell him just to go.

I am too tired by this point to try and even attempt bedtime and anyway I have decided not to mention 'that' word all holidays and see if the girls can self regulate. So we all settle down to watch Tarzan. I'd love to say the night ended with us all snuggled watching a film together and they fell asleep on the sofa but Millie woke up and the action of me moving and taking Millie to the toilet and for a nappy change (she was dry!!) alerted Ellie to the fact that she was lying on her own on the floor. She wanted on the sofa too, fair enough. She HAD to be beside me. Maia refused to move up so I could be in the middle. Ellie was getting upset. Millie was getting upset. It all got really stressful again, I literally felt a brain cell explode. I'm afraid I lost it :-(

Maia cried. I cried. Millie who had been happily feeding cried because she fell off during the kerfuffle. I was so pissed off with shouting as I had almost managed the whole day without losing it.  I just didn't understand why Maia wouldn't move and didn't have anything left in me to try and sort it consciously. I said if she wouldn't move I would just take Ellie up to bed (she was desperate to fall asleep next to me).  This obviously made Maia cry more at the thought of being left alone but still refused to move.  Then, for some unknown reason, possibly tiredness, I physically moved her onto the floor instead of up the sofa a bit.  She eventually calmed down and crawled back onto the sofa.

Harmony restored. Film finished. All in bed asleep by midnight.

Long live diclofenac, my pain medication


Meltdown - one spectacular one
Losing plot - one spectacular one
Breastfeeding - happily
Pooping - only a few frothy ones