TV limits for kids

When my 21-month-old daughter awakes in the morning, she has a strange but consistent routine. She sits straight up, pulls her pacifier out of her mouth and yells, “Johnny! I want Johnny!”

This seriously alarmed my husband the first few times, who looked at me suspiciously and said, “And who, may I ask, is Johnny?” I told him the sad, but innocent, truth: Johnny is a character on a mind-numbing TV show for toddlers.

He lives in the woods with puppets and likes to sing ridiculous songs that get stuck in my head and have me muttering, “A good song makes me happy, a good song makes me smile,” as I check out at Wal-Mart.

But every morning, my daughter, Nicole, requests Johnny and I give it to her. But the fact that she comes out of her sleep shouting for Johnny makes me wonder if she’s watching too much TV.

I had the same worry when I took her to the doctor last week and she picked a sticker out of the box and exclaimed, “Elmo!” It was the only word she said the entire visit.

What kind of time limits do you set for TV time in your home? How much TV is too much for kids?