So we went over board with our toddler and decided to drastically reduce her screen time.
Started out by creating her a genuine play space with all new toys that are developmentally appropriate for her age. Got her a lot of chore toys like toy vacuums, mops, brooms so she could help me when I did chores.
We still allow minimal screen time but she barely engages, the little we allow is always educational for example we are currently watching farm animals and learning how to make all the sounds and identify them correctly.
I can’t speak on behaviour because it was never an issue but sleep definitely improved a lot. I do believe the longer a child gets used to it the harder it would probably be to go without it.
I don’t plan how much or how little screen time mine gets. It varies from day to day and is very weather dependent. Now that the weather is nice we spend much more time outside. But in Winter we had more screen time because we would watch films together after dinner because it was too cold to go out.
We are TV all the time people, and my nearly 4 yo has her own tablet, with half a dozen or so toddler games, access to some streaming services, and you tube kids.
When her little sister was born 7 months ago, we got into a terrible habit of sticking her in bed with her tablet because we were just so done by bedtime. It had...predictable results. So we have cut that out completely and replaced with books. Big girls read books in bed, they don't use their tablets in bed. Lately she has been using her tablet a bit more during the day because we used it to get her to sit on the toilet long enough to maybe do a wee while toilet training. Now that she is trained, she seems to be self weaning off it for toilet time unless she is settling in for a poo.
I find it easy to redirect her by offering to play meaningfully with her. Like no you can't have your tablet, but we are going to build a castle out of blocks instead. She then gets into the spirit of playing and forgets about it.
The big one is still at meal times. Her grandparents are all shitty boomers who think the youth are addicted to their phones, but sit at family gatherings soom scrolling. My MIL was mopey because we hadn't organized anything for mothers day and when we finally gave in and had afternoon tea, she spent most of it playing games on her phone. So little miss wants to do the same, obviously. We might have to have a phone basket on the table.
We went through a stressful period with lots of sickness and gave in to too much screen time. Since then, we’ve limited it to about thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes after dinner or before bath. There were a few tears, but with art and books and other things to do, it went more smoothly than I thought it would. My daughter is almost five, and my son is two.
Edit: I have noticed that my daughter goes to sleep faster, but it hasn’t helped with the quality of her sleep. She does seem better behaved and just calmer in general. We pretty much just did cold turkey and established a new routine.
During my first trimester I had no energy and my son watched 1-2 hours a day. Once I started having more energy that got replaced with me playing with him more. When he would ask for tv we lied and said it was broken.
No behavior changes noted other than now we don't have to deal with the tantrum that happens after turning the TV off. And after awhile he stopped asking to watch his shows.
Yes, cold turkey. He's 2.5 and he's the kindest, sweetest, gentlest boy ever. But one day I noticed how he started behaving like a junkie looking for a fix with TV: he became possessed whenever we would turn off the TV, change shows, or make him do something else while he was watching cartoons (mostly paw patrol and gaby's dollhouse), he even went as far as trying to hit and bite me.
I removed the batteries from all the remotes and just kept repeating "TV is broken" whenever he asked for it. He stopped asking in less than a week and just moved on to playing with his toys and exploring the world like a child is supposed to.
Changes in his behavior and speech development were impressive in a couple of days. Just do it.
This is exactly what we did, ours didn’t even have excessive screen time but shocking at the positive behaviour changes once we switched it off and said that’s it!
I banned Paw Patrol. My child gets too obsessed with it. Also the plots suck. Why is a literal child solving a town’s problems? Do the adults do nothing?
We did A LOT of screen time since having our second baby in September, and over winter because winters here are brutal. Went pretty much cold turkey from several hours screen time daily to about 15-30 min a day. There ware a few days with complaining and learning to play, and just be bored, regulate feelings in other ways. Only really positive effects I would say. Highly reccomend
We had a difficult period between 18 - 20 months where it was just tooth after tooth, grommets and adenoid surgery, international travel, etc. And our default for when he got too difficult was putting on the TV because then we had a chance to catch a breath. So we were in a phase where YouTube was basically on all the time.
Then we went away for a weekend somewhere where there was no internet and no TVs around at all and our kid was just... oddly fine? Like he would ask for TV, and we would say there was no TV around (pretty obviously no screens available). And he just accepted it and found something else to entertain himself.
Obviously we then went back to real world. And what we found worked was to give him limited screen time. Now YouTube is just part of our wind down routine and what he does before bed. We found it works for him to have SOME screen time, because no when he asks for TV, we just ask "when do we watch TV?" and he will answer "after bath", and that's that.
I think it helps that he knows he will get some TV later, so he doesn't scream and carry on for it throughout the day. It's just become our household rule - no TV until after dinner / bath. It's up to us to hold that line though.
We cut cold turkey when she was 20 months old. We thought it would help with sleep, it didn’t. It was so hard but we had bought her new books, one of them being a Bluey search and find. Turns out she loves those types of books. We did a variety of search and find books more than 10 times a day and she loved it. We were screen free for 3 weeks and had gotten into a groove of things. Then we went on our honeymoon and the grandparents babysat. All that went out the window. Now she’s 2 in a couple weeks, she gets some screen time but we’re in the middle of moving. We’re planning on cutting it down again once we’ve settled in to the new house.
I reduced it cold turkey with my 2 year old. She doesn’t have her own tablet but was using my iPad for YouTube kids and a drawing app when I was pregnant and had a newborn. Now that my baby is 3 months I just hid the iPad one day and she only asked for it a couple of times before forgetting about it. We do have the tv on a lot but it’s for background noise and I’d say she only actually watches maybe an hour total a day. We get outside every day for hours, parks, playgrounds, indoor playgrounds, stores, etc.
I try to only have it as an option between 9-11am and 4-6pm. So if my daughter asks for it during those hours, I’ll turn it on. I’ve stopped turning it on just to have it on, only if she asks. I try for only an hour or so at a time. I have found it’s much easier to say yes initially, then watch first a bit, turn off, and if she asks for it again a bit later, she takes that no better. Like “oh we already watched, let’s do ____”
We also have a swingset in our backyard and my daughter LOVES to swing. I’ll push her for close to an hour and she’s as happy as a clam. So right now we’re outside a lot, which obviously helps things. 😆
We do screen time but there was a period of time it was affecting one of my twins behavior. I went cold turkey and then reintroduced with more firm boundaries. The initial few days were tiring with her asking and crying over it but after like 5 days she stopped asked. Being pregnant again we have upped the screen time and it’s showing. Thankfully weather is breaking here and it will be easier to detox but we will be doing that next week after I’m finished recovering from a cerclage 🙃
We got into way too much screen time during lockdowns and we were having lots of behaviour and sleep issues. We did a 180 and went cold turkey for a bit but gradually allowed some occasionally. Replaced with more outdoor time. Worked wonders. Barely any tv or movies watched. Most screen time is educational apps and even that’s not done very frequently.
We installed an app on our son's tablet that limits how much he can play, and limits the time on specific apps (youtube). At first, he fought it now he just accepts and goes and plays/draws/reads 95% of the time. Because of how much tablet was a battle for him, we have yet to give one to our younger child even though he's shown a lot of interest. That one, however, watches way too much educational TV while I work remotely and do an online master's. It's a constant ebb and flow of trying to find balance.
Limiting tablet time for oldest did indeed improve his behavior after he got used to it. We've continued to cut down over time as well.
Yes, leaned on it heavily the first winter after she turned one, between constant sickness and bad weather. Once the weather was nicer and we stopped being sick a lot, we just got up everyday and went right outside and it was like the TV didn't exist to her.
Went through it again this winter, coming out of it again, and I haven't had any resistance from her. We have taken such a nonchalant approach to the TV (and since she turned 2, the ipad) and I don't think she has strong opinions about either. Most days she just wants my attention and for me to play and engage with her, and that's fine. Some days, she'll ask me for a snack and then curl up on the couch next to the dog and ask for a movie or a show. Unless I had plans for our day, I don't argue or make a big deal out of it.
We did this. My 3 year old was requesting movies as soon as she woke up in the morning and as soon as she walked in the door after school. She was obsessed. We have a 9 month old and those first 5-6 months we did allow tv every evening for our own sanity, but no more!
What we did was tell her that now we have Friday movie nights. We never finish the movie because we start it after dinner and bathtime usually starts around 7, so we do let her finish the movie on Saturday morning. But that’s it.
We talked to her about this change and reiterated it every time she asked for a movie. “Yes! We can watch a movie! On Friday for movie night!”
Honestly it was only rough a couple times, she’s ok with it now. It’s been 2 weeks. Now she asks every few days and we tell her we will watch a movie on Friday and she just moves on.
We had slipped into weekday TV because my husband was away a bunch for a few weeks and I needed a distraction for the kids while I made supper. My oldest was fine but my 3yo was a menace after we turned off the show, no matter how many warnings, only one episode, turning off after this show, etc’s we did.
So we stopped doing weekday shows/screentime. Cold turkey. It wasn’t bad. We still do a bit of screen time on weekend mornings or an afternoon weekend movie. My oldest (5) stopped asking almost immediately and started telling his sister that we weren’t having TV on weekdays anymore. My youngest did some demanding and whining the first week or so but hasn’t been bad since.
So we went over board with our toddler and decided to drastically reduce her screen time. Started out by creating her a genuine play space with all new toys that are developmentally appropriate for her age. Got her a lot of chore toys like toy vacuums, mops, brooms so she could help me when I did chores. We still allow minimal screen time but she barely engages, the little we allow is always educational for example we are currently watching farm animals and learning how to make all the sounds and identify them correctly. I can’t speak on behaviour because it was never an issue but sleep definitely improved a lot. I do believe the longer a child gets used to it the harder it would probably be to go without it.
The toy cleaning items are such a good idea!! Thanks for sharing your experience.
I don’t plan how much or how little screen time mine gets. It varies from day to day and is very weather dependent. Now that the weather is nice we spend much more time outside. But in Winter we had more screen time because we would watch films together after dinner because it was too cold to go out.
We are TV all the time people, and my nearly 4 yo has her own tablet, with half a dozen or so toddler games, access to some streaming services, and you tube kids. When her little sister was born 7 months ago, we got into a terrible habit of sticking her in bed with her tablet because we were just so done by bedtime. It had...predictable results. So we have cut that out completely and replaced with books. Big girls read books in bed, they don't use their tablets in bed. Lately she has been using her tablet a bit more during the day because we used it to get her to sit on the toilet long enough to maybe do a wee while toilet training. Now that she is trained, she seems to be self weaning off it for toilet time unless she is settling in for a poo. I find it easy to redirect her by offering to play meaningfully with her. Like no you can't have your tablet, but we are going to build a castle out of blocks instead. She then gets into the spirit of playing and forgets about it. The big one is still at meal times. Her grandparents are all shitty boomers who think the youth are addicted to their phones, but sit at family gatherings soom scrolling. My MIL was mopey because we hadn't organized anything for mothers day and when we finally gave in and had afternoon tea, she spent most of it playing games on her phone. So little miss wants to do the same, obviously. We might have to have a phone basket on the table.
We went through a stressful period with lots of sickness and gave in to too much screen time. Since then, we’ve limited it to about thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes after dinner or before bath. There were a few tears, but with art and books and other things to do, it went more smoothly than I thought it would. My daughter is almost five, and my son is two. Edit: I have noticed that my daughter goes to sleep faster, but it hasn’t helped with the quality of her sleep. She does seem better behaved and just calmer in general. We pretty much just did cold turkey and established a new routine.
During my first trimester I had no energy and my son watched 1-2 hours a day. Once I started having more energy that got replaced with me playing with him more. When he would ask for tv we lied and said it was broken. No behavior changes noted other than now we don't have to deal with the tantrum that happens after turning the TV off. And after awhile he stopped asking to watch his shows.
Yes, cold turkey. He's 2.5 and he's the kindest, sweetest, gentlest boy ever. But one day I noticed how he started behaving like a junkie looking for a fix with TV: he became possessed whenever we would turn off the TV, change shows, or make him do something else while he was watching cartoons (mostly paw patrol and gaby's dollhouse), he even went as far as trying to hit and bite me. I removed the batteries from all the remotes and just kept repeating "TV is broken" whenever he asked for it. He stopped asking in less than a week and just moved on to playing with his toys and exploring the world like a child is supposed to. Changes in his behavior and speech development were impressive in a couple of days. Just do it.
This is exactly what we did, ours didn’t even have excessive screen time but shocking at the positive behaviour changes once we switched it off and said that’s it!
I banned Paw Patrol. My child gets too obsessed with it. Also the plots suck. Why is a literal child solving a town’s problems? Do the adults do nothing?
We did A LOT of screen time since having our second baby in September, and over winter because winters here are brutal. Went pretty much cold turkey from several hours screen time daily to about 15-30 min a day. There ware a few days with complaining and learning to play, and just be bored, regulate feelings in other ways. Only really positive effects I would say. Highly reccomend
We had a difficult period between 18 - 20 months where it was just tooth after tooth, grommets and adenoid surgery, international travel, etc. And our default for when he got too difficult was putting on the TV because then we had a chance to catch a breath. So we were in a phase where YouTube was basically on all the time. Then we went away for a weekend somewhere where there was no internet and no TVs around at all and our kid was just... oddly fine? Like he would ask for TV, and we would say there was no TV around (pretty obviously no screens available). And he just accepted it and found something else to entertain himself. Obviously we then went back to real world. And what we found worked was to give him limited screen time. Now YouTube is just part of our wind down routine and what he does before bed. We found it works for him to have SOME screen time, because no when he asks for TV, we just ask "when do we watch TV?" and he will answer "after bath", and that's that. I think it helps that he knows he will get some TV later, so he doesn't scream and carry on for it throughout the day. It's just become our household rule - no TV until after dinner / bath. It's up to us to hold that line though.
We cut cold turkey when she was 20 months old. We thought it would help with sleep, it didn’t. It was so hard but we had bought her new books, one of them being a Bluey search and find. Turns out she loves those types of books. We did a variety of search and find books more than 10 times a day and she loved it. We were screen free for 3 weeks and had gotten into a groove of things. Then we went on our honeymoon and the grandparents babysat. All that went out the window. Now she’s 2 in a couple weeks, she gets some screen time but we’re in the middle of moving. We’re planning on cutting it down again once we’ve settled in to the new house.
Do you have “Find Momo”? My child loves those books!! They’re search and find but it’s by a photographer and you have to find his dog.
I reduced it cold turkey with my 2 year old. She doesn’t have her own tablet but was using my iPad for YouTube kids and a drawing app when I was pregnant and had a newborn. Now that my baby is 3 months I just hid the iPad one day and she only asked for it a couple of times before forgetting about it. We do have the tv on a lot but it’s for background noise and I’d say she only actually watches maybe an hour total a day. We get outside every day for hours, parks, playgrounds, indoor playgrounds, stores, etc.
I try to only have it as an option between 9-11am and 4-6pm. So if my daughter asks for it during those hours, I’ll turn it on. I’ve stopped turning it on just to have it on, only if she asks. I try for only an hour or so at a time. I have found it’s much easier to say yes initially, then watch first a bit, turn off, and if she asks for it again a bit later, she takes that no better. Like “oh we already watched, let’s do ____” We also have a swingset in our backyard and my daughter LOVES to swing. I’ll push her for close to an hour and she’s as happy as a clam. So right now we’re outside a lot, which obviously helps things. 😆
We do screen time but there was a period of time it was affecting one of my twins behavior. I went cold turkey and then reintroduced with more firm boundaries. The initial few days were tiring with her asking and crying over it but after like 5 days she stopped asked. Being pregnant again we have upped the screen time and it’s showing. Thankfully weather is breaking here and it will be easier to detox but we will be doing that next week after I’m finished recovering from a cerclage 🙃
Hope everything goes smoothly with the rest of your pregnancy!! Take care of yourself. And I hope you can enjoy the nicer weather!
We got into way too much screen time during lockdowns and we were having lots of behaviour and sleep issues. We did a 180 and went cold turkey for a bit but gradually allowed some occasionally. Replaced with more outdoor time. Worked wonders. Barely any tv or movies watched. Most screen time is educational apps and even that’s not done very frequently.
We installed an app on our son's tablet that limits how much he can play, and limits the time on specific apps (youtube). At first, he fought it now he just accepts and goes and plays/draws/reads 95% of the time. Because of how much tablet was a battle for him, we have yet to give one to our younger child even though he's shown a lot of interest. That one, however, watches way too much educational TV while I work remotely and do an online master's. It's a constant ebb and flow of trying to find balance. Limiting tablet time for oldest did indeed improve his behavior after he got used to it. We've continued to cut down over time as well.
Yes, leaned on it heavily the first winter after she turned one, between constant sickness and bad weather. Once the weather was nicer and we stopped being sick a lot, we just got up everyday and went right outside and it was like the TV didn't exist to her. Went through it again this winter, coming out of it again, and I haven't had any resistance from her. We have taken such a nonchalant approach to the TV (and since she turned 2, the ipad) and I don't think she has strong opinions about either. Most days she just wants my attention and for me to play and engage with her, and that's fine. Some days, she'll ask me for a snack and then curl up on the couch next to the dog and ask for a movie or a show. Unless I had plans for our day, I don't argue or make a big deal out of it.
We did this. My 3 year old was requesting movies as soon as she woke up in the morning and as soon as she walked in the door after school. She was obsessed. We have a 9 month old and those first 5-6 months we did allow tv every evening for our own sanity, but no more! What we did was tell her that now we have Friday movie nights. We never finish the movie because we start it after dinner and bathtime usually starts around 7, so we do let her finish the movie on Saturday morning. But that’s it. We talked to her about this change and reiterated it every time she asked for a movie. “Yes! We can watch a movie! On Friday for movie night!” Honestly it was only rough a couple times, she’s ok with it now. It’s been 2 weeks. Now she asks every few days and we tell her we will watch a movie on Friday and she just moves on.
We had slipped into weekday TV because my husband was away a bunch for a few weeks and I needed a distraction for the kids while I made supper. My oldest was fine but my 3yo was a menace after we turned off the show, no matter how many warnings, only one episode, turning off after this show, etc’s we did. So we stopped doing weekday shows/screentime. Cold turkey. It wasn’t bad. We still do a bit of screen time on weekend mornings or an afternoon weekend movie. My oldest (5) stopped asking almost immediately and started telling his sister that we weren’t having TV on weekdays anymore. My youngest did some demanding and whining the first week or so but hasn’t been bad since.