Weekends, the whole series on a Sunday, children, partners and when the sofa is more than a habit

The rule holds every night. A few situations need their own paragraph.

Weekends. The number can be two, or three, when the alarm isn't at seven. The end time moves with the morning. What doesn't change is that the number is said before the first episode and the stop is at the credits, because a Saturday that ends at two in the morning is a Sunday spent recovering, and that's a chosen thing only if it was chosen at nine.

The chosen binge. A wet Sunday, a series you've been saving, four episodes and a pot of tea, decided at lunchtime. That's an occasion and this book is for it. The difference from the Tuesday overrun is that it was chosen in advance, as a whole, by a person who wasn't under a cliff, and that it ends at a time you set. Say the number at lunchtime, four, and stop at four, and it's the best kind of afternoon.

Children. Hale and Guan's review found screen time linked with worse and later sleep in ninety per cent of the studies of children and teenagers they looked at, with the caveat that causation isn't proven. Autoplay off on every device children use is the single largest thing you can do for their bedtimes, because a child can't be expected to stop against a countdown when adults can't. And a child who watches a parent say "one, and then bed" and do it is learning how evenings end, which is the lesson chapter 13 said the house is teaching either way.

Partners. If one of you wants the third episode and the other wants bed, autoplay off gives you the conversation at the credits that chapter 12 described, and the conversation is where two people decide, and two people deciding is what a shared evening is. If one of you always wants more, that's a thing to talk about at a different hour, and an earlier book in this series is about raising things.

Different shows. Some episodes have no cliff, and stopping is easy, and some are built entirely of cliffs, and stopping is hard. The number holds for both. For the second kind, the cliff test in chapter 21 is the tool, and the remote across the room is the backup.

When the sofa is more than a habit. If the television is on until midnight because the quiet after it is unbearable, because there's nothing else in the evening, or because the day is something to be got to the end of, that isn't autoplay. It may be low mood, and the NHS's guide is that low mood most of the day for two weeks is a reason to see a GP. Turning autoplay off won't hurt, but it won't be the answer, and the answer is worth having.

When sleep is the problem whatever you watch. If the nights are bad with or without the television, if you lie awake for hours or wake early most nights, the NHS insomnia pages say when to see a GP and what's offered. The method here helps at the edges. It isn't a treatment for insomnia, and a book shouldn't pretend to be.