DS is a new 2, and we never allowed screens before this save video calls with out of state grandparents and aunts. Now, he does circle time at daycare for 30 minutes a day with his classmates, and yoga once a week for an hour on Zoom. With me wfh, he also watches Word Party on Netflix whenever I have an important meeting or project I need him to be quiet for, which averages about an hour or so each day.

This is awful.

Our family standard has always been 1 hour of screentime for the kids, and trying to minimize it at all until they're 3, but that's just had to change.

The older kids are actually pretty good about sticking to an hour of video games or shows, but they have additional school work on the computer/ipad, plus they like to facetime to read with grandparents they can't visit right now, and play board games with them on the ipad as well. So yeah...they're using a screen for way more than usual, oh well. Maintaining happiness and connection is way more important to me than strict limits.

The youngest one is 2.5. I've taken to letting him play on the phone sitting next to me or watching a couple shows with the siblings when I'm on a teleconference or just have to crank out something for work. Not sure what else to do. We'll all survive.

I don’t ever allow the older two to watch/play IPad while the little is there unless the little can watch too.

So the older ones get their shows while the little one sleeps.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Watch the Glennon Doyle video on why screens don’t matter, especially now and do what you have to do to maintain your sanity.

Just watched.... "Get back in front of that tv, carry-on warrior" - start strong, end strong with a short 7 hour show in between!

Our three year old watches a Disney movie every afternoon, every other day or so she'll do some time with PBS Kids games on a tablet, and sometimes I'll give her my phone to watch like a five minute video about firefighters.

It's a lot more than usual, but I'm actually finding that I don't hate it as much as the ad hoc "some Daniel Tiger on weekends" thing we did before. It's more regularized and she gets angry less often when the screen goes off. It's not my ideal way to parent, but times being what they are everyone's doing what works for them.

Anonymous wrote:She doesn't have a tablet but yes she's around way more TV than usual. Oh well.

+1

Yes. My 3 yr old gets about an hr after breakfast of PBS kids while I clean up and get big bigs started on their homework. She might watch a big more with the big kids in the late afternoon but not much. Sometimes we will watch a movie as a family. I’m not worried. We are all doing our best and trying to stay sane.

My 4 year old has a set time in the afternoon when he watches a movie. It's 90 minutes to maybe 2 hours. We do short 5 minute you tube videos in the morning related to a specific learning topic. Then sometimes he watches 15 or so minutes of a show while dinner is getting ready, or he plays a game on my phone. He does not have his own device.

It's more than we had before this, but it's not out of control. It looks a little bit like what our weekends used to look like, except every single day.

I'm not worried about it. My only advice would be, pick a course of action you are comfortable with for the rest of the year, because I don't think things are going back to normal until 2021, so you need to prepare for that.

Yes, we are allowing a lot more screens than usual. She watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Peppa Pig, Daniel Tiger, Cloudbabies, Doc McStuffins, and Vampirina.

It really won't hurt them.

We still don’t allow screens for our nearly four-year-old and nearly two-year-old but I can see how it would be relatively impossible to have one older kid who’s allowed screens while the younger one isn’t. I honestly wouldn’t worry about it, OP, and I am firmly anti-screens until at least three.

Yup. As much as she freaking wants. If she wants to watch Cocomelon for hour-long stretches, we go for it. I actually find that by letting it run ad nauseum she gets bored and wanders away to do her own thing surprisingly quickly anyway so it's not hours of slack-jawed staring, although she notices right away if it gets turned off, ha. So, I've been mentally singing this insane song about "dinosaur rulers" jump, jiving, and wailing for the past week and a half. So it goes.

I doubt some extra Peppa Pig during this time is really going to make a difference.

Yes. Watch the Glennon Doyle video on why screens don’t matter, especially now and do what you have to do to maintain your sanity.

She doesn't have a tablet but yes she's around way more TV than usual. Oh well.

I have 3 kids and still maintaining controls on screens. I am losing my mind. My youngest just turned 3 and she wants the iPad as her older siblings are on them playing games. I allow around 2 hours per day for older kids. They do some work online on the computers. I realize by doing this, I personally don’t have any time to myself until 10pm. I see other parents saying they are binging on their own shows. I listen to news and that’s about it.