The screen time rule I do not follow
For me or my kid
I’m sure you’ve heard that the last thing we should be doing right before bed is being on a screen. And yet, that’s exactly how we’ve been ending our day with our child for the last couple of months.
why? Is short, because it works for us.
The longer answer is that like many families our day is sort of a race to bedtime. One of the ways my child winds down for bedtime is by reading, almost always on the iPad because it’s a way of reading graphic novels from the library in full color.
And then, after our bedtime routine, one of us pulls out our phone and we play games with our kiddo, cuddled in the dark, before we say good night.
I know they look forward to it, but to be honest, I do too. It’s an invitation to calm down, slow down, and prioritize something as simple as a few minutes of thinking and playing and connecting together.
if we had noticed that this was making bedtime much harder, or that the days my child read on an iPad they stayed up for hours versus when they read with a physical book, then we would probably make a change.
In short, because it’s working for our family, I don’t see any point in changing it. It isn’t a “best practice” but I would much rather have these moments with our child at a time of day I can be consistent with, than not have it at all and miss out on that connection opportunity because “screens before bed are bad.”
it’s yet another reminder that sometimes centering, the needs of our family goes against what we have heard to do in isolation, but that we can think critically about our needs, our family’s needs, and the information we received from others in order to find what’s best for everyone in our family
One of my kiddos has fallen asleep to audiobooks or music for years and for a variety of reasons, it’s just easiest to use a phone or iPad for this. I do sneak in after they’re asleep to take it out - when I forget to do that, they sometimes end up messing around on it first thing in the morning when I don’t want screens available. But this routine works so well for us! And bedtime is hard enough… I don’t need to feel guilty that I’m doing it wrong. Love this post!
We have a similar situation. Our kid already can have a hard time winding down for sleep at the end of the day, regardless of screen time. My husband plays some low key games on his phone with her, and we both let her see the screen while we play a few songs right before sleep, and those don’t seem to disrupt her heading to sleep. But of course the screen time content can matter—an exciting TV show before bed means she’s romping around the room and being crazy and disregulated. But we also have the same problem if we read an exciting new book before bed… I used to feel a bit guilty about using screens, since it’s supposed to be “not good” but yeah, it works for us! More parenting advice needs the disclaimer “if this doesn’t work for you, it’s ok to disregard it”!