3 year old YouTube kids in the morning

[covidagainnn]

My 3yo DS went through a phase of being hooked on kids YouTube - entirely our fault of course - down to a difficult period of moving house, a serious back injury and other factors meaning we needed ways to occupy him. Anyway it's been massively reduced and during the day time he is either doing an activity out of the house or at nursery. I allow a bit of CBeebies in the evenings when I'm making dinner but that's it.

However our morning routine has stuck and I don't know how to change it. Basically he gets up and comes into our bed and watches kids YouTube on the iPad. It gives us half an hour to drink coffee, chat, cuddle him etc before the day starts. However the YouTube bit is obviously terrible.

Do other people's preschoolers come into their bed in the morning and if so are they just reading books?

Dd sometimes has her iPad in the morning - it depends what type of morning we're having.

I had a tb in the bedroom so we would cuddle and watch that. I would get rid of YT kids but download the proper TV channel apps so they can have access to programmes that you have some control over.

In a very similar situation to you, also with DS3. We used to have a Google screen in the kitchen where my DS would watch Youtube, we removed the screen when it was getting to the stage he was waking up at 5/5.30 and going straight downstairs. Cold turkey and after a couple of days he forgot all about it, and 2 months later doesn't even ask.

I agree with others - remove the YT app, maybe have some books in your room that you can read together? DS3 comes into our room but knows not to wake us up until one of us wakes up naturally. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I just want to say, well done for cutting down his YouTube to this level. Screen time is all good, but I do agree that YouTube does turn them into zombies!

My DD was the same, so we restricted YouTube in the daytime completely. She has two (and only 2) 10-15 minute videos before bed, and they're not too stimulating (she loves watching people build Lego, or playing with slime). Occasionally she'll have a YouTube video on my phone in bed, like your DC, but only once or twice a week and honestly - this is usually because she's up to early for my body to function!

I'd cut out completely for now and then reintroduce in a restricted fashion.

Nothing! But the OP wants alternatives to You Tube kids, she doesn't say alternative to all screens.

Frankly a screen is a screen, and I've never been strict with my dc about it. I was just offering an alternative to YTkids

Update from today - last night I casually informed DS that YouTube was being cancelled. I said that from today it won't be available to us. He asked if he could use my phone instead and I said YouTube will be cancelled on there.

This morning I reminded him it was cancelled and he said "oh no" but then happily watched Bluey on the bbc app instead, so I still got my cuddles. Going to see how we get on over the next few days.