What are you doing? This is a judgement free zone.
We have been pretty lax about it and I feel like it's starting to bite us in the butt.
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Following! We have always let them watch about an hour in the morning while DH get ready for the day. So we’re still doing that, and then trying to hold out until my youngest takes a nap. I let the older 2 (7 and 5) watch for however long he naps, which can be up to 2-3 hours, but it’s the only time I can count on getting a good chunk of work done. Then at night we’ve been doing one show or 20-30 minutes of a video game. It feels like a lot but it is what it is!
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Ages 3 and 5. Two hours of tablet time as quiet time. Max 2 episodes of Mickey mouse clubhouse in the evening. DH sometimes puts on Disney movies during the day with them. Kids have seen DH play video games occasionally for years. DS will watch Pandora as well. School work gives no more than 1/2 hours of screen time. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.
10 month old sees the TV when it is on.
Occasional movies, video games, and Mickey mouse clubhouse.No issues with behavior.
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🤣 all bets are off right now. If I’m busy with work they can have their kindles.
As long as my 2nd grader gets his school assignments done he can play on his kindle or video game on the tv.
I do try to limit it to 30 min chunks. We break it up by going outside to play. Or if I can distract them with an art project or something.
But omg, I can’t even look at the weekly total of kindle time for them.
They also aren’t allowed to have them after dinner. That is family time. So that helps a little bit. During the day though.... 🤷♀️
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The rule I’ve been trying to enforce for my 5yo is all schoolwork has to be done and they need to have done some form of physical exercise. It works pretty well because he’ll put off schoolwork by playing or otherwise occupying himself so a lot of days he doesn’t get work done in time to get any TV. We give DS2 screen time while DS1 does his schoolwork though. Usually some circle time or read aloud videos and then some iPad games.
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@HappyBaker: literally do the exact same thing. About an hour in the morning, then while the baby naps. Usually about 1.5-two hours. I don’t have to work but I have to attempt sanity and that’s the only way
Occasionally we will watch part of a movie after dinner but that’s just about 1 time a week.
ETA: my kids are awake for 13 hours a day so I feel like 10 screen free hours is good enough. That’s a lot of time to entertain haha
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They’d be getting a lot more if it wasn’t for DD (11 months). I’d rather have them playing/paying attention to her than watching TV (because I don’t want to entertain her all day). So we are usually at 30 minutes max (with some movies, maybe 2x per week) for non-school screen time. But they also take chess lessons on-line twice a week and zoom calls, and DS has on-line math every day. So they are staring at screens a lot, which is not my favorite. My work is extremely flexible, and I’m not doing anywhere near my normal amount. If I was, there would be way more.
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@Mrs. Champagne: haha I should have clarified, I’d be doing the same if I wasn’t trying to work because it’s the only down time I get! Friends of mine are like “we read books when we wake up and play” and I’m like, my kids wake by 6 at the latest, I need that morning hour to become a functioning human!
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Watching Shows/TV has remained the same at 1 - 2 hours per day, but we've added a lot of other screen time - mainly facetime/zoom with friends and family. LO (age 5) is a super social kid and we try to get her a "playdate" with someone most days: a friend, grandparent, teacher, etc. Sometimes it's 15 minutes, and the record is 3 hours with one friend! We're also doing some educational games and art based apps - the amount mostly depends on my husband's work schedule (I'm still working onsite at my job daily). It's more than I'd prefer, but I'm fine with it. Survival is key!
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It depends on the day...if they’re up before 6 am I sometimes let them watch PBS kids on my phone while I sleep but I’m trying to cut that out bc It causes noticeable misbehavior during the day. If it’s rainy (like today) they end up watching a fair amount. Generally if I let them watch tv it ends up being for 2+ hours so I try as hard as I can to have no screen time when possible. If it didn’t affect their behavior (more my 5 year old) I’d have no prob with it.
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My kids are 8, 5 and 20m. I try to hold out for the littlest to nap because they’re pretty happy to play in the morning and nobody is a super early riser right now (without school we are sleeping until 7). During nap I pretty much say whatever because we live in a small house and I need it to be quiet or she doesn’t stay asleep and my 5yo cannot play quietly. Then we sometimes turn it on during dinner making if needed, and sometimes we watch a family show after dinner (like Lego masters or jeopardy) maybe once a week or so. Of course I also just use it if we need it. I let the 20m old watch Baby Bum the other day for an hour because she wouldn’t stop screaming while we were trying to get school done. I say whatever you can make work is fine!
I’m not counting FaceTime or zoom. They also like to read books on Epic, 8yo reads to herself but I still limit it some because any screen other than the kindle paper white can cause problems with the 5yo. One thing that is driving me crazy is that her specials teachers keep posting assignments where the kids make a video for flip grid and then she wants to use her school iPad all the time to watch those. I get the appeal (we’ve all done our share of social media scrolling) but yesterday I had to crack down! I do find it harder that she has a school iPad that’s not locked.
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20 minutes every day before lunch while I meal prep/clean. An hour or so on Epic/PBS kids after school, play, and quiet time. Sometimes a show or two at bedtime. All bets off on the days I was sick and on the days I was struggling with mental health.
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For DS1 who is seven he is getting more screen time overall but I’m working full time at home so it is what it is. DS2 is 20 months and sometimes watches.
He gets about an hour in the morning, depending when he wakes up. Then he gets it at the babies nap time. Sometimes I work, sometimes I rest. And then some nights he will get another show before bed.
Then screen time for school or FaceTime but I do t count that against him.
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@HappyBaker: yes mine are early risers too. Counting down the minutes until the baby will start watching a show too.
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My kids are 4 and 2, and they hate sitting for meals or really eating at all. So honestly, it's easiest for us to pair screentime with meals, because between the two things they actually will sit and stay contained for awhile. It also gives us a natural ending - when the meals over, the show is over; or vice versa.
We do about 30 min of "Breakfast with Blippi" or something decently "educational" on Youtube; then some sort of short Netflix episode for lunch, then a Disney movie with dinner. SO, basically, 30 min, 30 min, then 60-90 min.
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ETA: my kids are 4 and 6. I’ve been mentally dividing screen time into 2 categories: “bad screen time”—this is where they just sit-and-get, like a tv show, or a silly game on their kindles. And “neutral screentime”, where they are doing required schoolwork/zoom or doing something active like a dance class.
So bad screentime (this is only my mental vocabulary) policy is exactly the same as always: the get 2 shows a day, 1 in the morning and 1 after dinner. Younger kid picks the morning show and older kid picks evening show. The shows are 22 minutes. They get 30 minutes of kindles on weekend only, and that’s in place of a show, not in addition. We try to watch 1 family movie 1x a week on Friday nights, but other than that, we don’t allow a lot just because it goes over our screen time.
“Neutral screen time” is way, way up now. We had none at home before (I know they sometimes watch educational videos at school). Now they do Cosmic kids yoga, 1 online dance class, 1 YouTube stretching video (they are both trying to get their splits and aren’t very flexible), they both have daily zoom class now, and my older one also now has online Language Arts and Math worksheets (the used to be printed out but now it’s online). And on top of all that, if we can’t go outside because of weather, I let them do either Nintendo Fit or Just Dance, to keep them active.
So I’m a weirdo, like I don’t let them play video games where they just sit and play. But I let them play Nintendo Fit. In my mind, I feel like one is filling a need and the other is fluff. But that’s just our family, I know other people feel differently about gaming. My kids never pick educational games on their kindle, which is why I limit it to 30 minutes on weekends only.
They don’t push back on the rules, because it’s been this way forever, so it works for us.
Sometimes during the school year, we cut down to just the 1 show each morning, so the evenings have more time for homework, reading out loud, etc, so they are used to all my rules.
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3-year-old usually watches for 2ish hours in the morning. The 8-month-old wakes up before 6 am for the day, so when DD1 gets up between 6:30 to 7 she plays for a little bit and has breakfast, and then watches TV while the baby takes her first nap. I really need her to stay quiet to the baby can take a decent nap. In the early afternoon DD1 gets my Kindle to look at some read-along books we check out from the library while I feed DD2 and get her ready to nap again. Then DD1 naps/has quiet time and we try not to do screens again for the rest of the day. If DD1 for some reason doesn’t nap and won’t stay in her room I will turn on a movie for her though, because I need that quiet time for myself!
I want to say it’s probably an average of 3 hours of screen time a day.
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Good grief you all have it together more than I do. Both DH and I are working remotely full time and the kids (3 and 5) get about 5-6 hours of screen time a day. They get shows in the morning during our earliest morning meetings, then the TV turns off automatically (thanks google routines). After that we just try and keep them alive till 5. They have kindle fires with severely trimmed down app options that require thinking/learning/interaction so I don't feel too bad. We also set up old computers for both of them so they can play pbs kids games, watch live zoo cams, and play starfall learning games.
Then they get about 15-20 minutes of a show before bed to help wind down and get cuddles on the couch.
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@codeitall: I was just thinking about how awful we're doing when I was reading the responses.
Our weekdays have become 'all the screentime' for the 4.5 year old and screentime after you do school for the 7 year old. They're up in the 8+ hours a day range easily. We used to have no screen time during the week.
To try to compensate somewhat in my head I'm doing a screen free Sunday. Really we give up around 4pm when the dread (prep, homework prep, reality) of the coming week sets in. I wish we could do screen free Saturday also but DH and I are using that time to decompress a little so it's just not all the screen time Sat.
We're not happy about it but that's what it is.
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It’s not great over here. They get up around 6-6:30 and the tv is on until around 8:30 while we laze around/shower/drink coffee. There’s about an hour at lunch, and then another hour before dinner. Sometimes on Fridays we also declare it movie day and add a movie in the afternoon. And my husband and I have split the workday but if we both have meetings we can’t get out of....you gotta do what you gotta do.
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@codeitall: @Corduroy: you are doing a great job. these are not normal times. it is going to be okay, they will be okay, this will end. seriously- think of the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. if thats all we can do right now then that is all that matters. please don't beat yourself up.
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My 7 year old does school-related things and gets outdoor activity from 930-12. My 9 month old is too little to notice or care about digital entertainment.
The rest of the day the 7 year old is on screens unless she breaks to go on a family walk or play. She does video chat with family/friends for a lot of that so i count that as more social time vs mindless nonsense.
It's temporary. But it is over 8 hours a day. When this is all over we will go back to a more reasonable schedule with screens.
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To offer a different perspective, we don't do a lot of screen time. They watch 2 shows in the morning while I shower and get ready and that's it for the day. On Saturday afternoons we watch a movie together. My kids are 5 and 3. My 5 year old will do about 20 minutes of schoolwork on the computer each day and a once a week zoom meeting. Both my kids do 90 minutes of quiet time in their room after lunch and go to bed at 7pm so I do feel like I get a break and some downtime. Both my husband and I are working from home right now. Our jobs are somewhat flexible so we switch off being with the kids and working.
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SOS - what TV show would entertain a two year old? Where do you find them and do they require a subscription?
My husband is pretty vehemently opposed to screens. But he's in meetings all day and I'm struggling with my work, It's piling up and I'm starting to panic - plus balancing him while I'm on meeting calls is also challenging. Toddler doesn't go to bed until 8:30, is up at 6am, I have an infant who gets up for feedings during that period, so not much time at night. Quitting isn't an option.
But he doesn't seem at all interested in tv, I've mostly tried videos of people reading books and singing songs - as he loves both - but it doesn't compare to mommy doing it. He just wants me to read him books all day. Which is awesome, but even ten minutes here and there would be such a blessing for my sanity...
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Some days it’s our normal amount, which is 30-60 minutes. Some days it’s none. And some days it’s 5+ hours. Screen time is normally something I am super strict about but right now it just is what it is. Nothing about this is normal. And there are just some days we are all in a funk and want to zone out.
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@periwinklebee: at that age the only show we let DD watch was Daniel tiger - and she loved it! (Still occasionally wants to watch it at five). We always watched it on Amazon prime, the first two seasons are still included with a prime membership.
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@periwinklebee: have you tried any of the pbs kids shows? I have a newly 2 year old who loves Daniel Tiger and Sesame Street. He also enjoys Super Why.
ETA we watch through Prime, the pbs kids app on our Apple TV or kindle, and have also purchased Daniel Tiger dvds from Target!
I have never been super duper strict about screen time but I am stricter about what my children watch. Daniel Tiger is very calming to both my boys.
Also Thomas the train? New épisodes on Netflix now
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@periwinklebee: what about Vooks? It's books in animated video format. A bit reminiscent of reading rainbow. My kids weren't into longer shows at that age either.
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We don’t have an iPad or kindle and only one tv so it’s pretty well controlled by DW and me. That said - we are giving our four year old a lot more kid movie time now that we are both trying to work full days from home. I think I’ve bought 6 new movies to stream on amazon in 6 weeks!! 🤦♀️
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@periwinklebee: Maybe try Cosmic Kids yoga? A season or two of episodes are included with Amazon Prime, and the presenter, Miss Jamie, tells a story to correspond with the series of yoga poses. That was the first thing my daughter watched regularly.
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@catgirl: @lady baltimore: @MrsSRS: @jhd: Thank you so much, these are great suggestions!
Didn't realize so much was available through Prime, which I already have, so that's awesome!
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@periwinklebee: my two year old has enjoyed @lady baltimore:’s suggestion! We just found the little kid episodes on YouTube now I need to check out the ones on prime. My big kid likes Go Noodle for getting energy out
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@periwinklebee: the first thing we ever got my daughter interested in is Blippi on YouTube. I think he’s great. It is the only thing my 21 month old will watch too (for maybe 10 mins. He’s insane). Give it a try!
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@periwinklebee: the only thing my 5 and 3 year olds watch is Shawn the Sheep (also on Amazon). They love it because it's silly, I love it because there's no talking so I don't worry about them learning words I don't want them to know yet.
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Oh man.
My 15mo gets about an hour of Sesame Street in the AM since I need her to be quiet while I'm on a phone conference. DH is usually sleeping due to working overnight. I'm feeling like a total bonehead now.
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@Mrs. Oreo: Why???
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@periwinklebee:
youtube: little baby bums and Blippi
Netflix: little baby bums, octonauts, masha and the bear, any animal shows -
@jhd: @Mrs. Champagne: @ilovepie: @DesertDreams88: Thank you so much for the suggestions!!!
@Mrs. Oreo: Not at all, Sesame Street is educational! I'm pretty sure I watched it (and various other stuff) every single day as a kid, my mother never thought twice about it, and I turned out (arguably - hah hah) fine.
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@Mrs. Oreo: my oldest would sit to watch a show at 12 months and he watched a couple shows every single morning so I could shower etc. Do NOT feel bad.
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@codeitall: don’t feel bad. We are in the same boat. We are both working from home. DH is a teacher and I’m an SLP. I spend most of my day doing video speech therapy sessions. Our 3 and 6 year olds are on their screens for hours each day. I feel sick about it but we need to work and I can’t have them barging into my office when I’m doing therapy.
We do outside activities daily as well and the 6 year old completes her school assignments when DS is napping.
We are all just trying to survive!
My 15mo gets about an hour of Sesame Street in the AM since I need her to be quiet while I'm on a phone conference. DH is usually sleeping due to working overnight. 
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