To want to ban my two year old from YouTube?

[NotInAsda]

I’ve got my flameproof knickers on for this because I know, I’m being lazy allowing my child to use a phone to keep him quiet for a moment, but I really don’t want him using YouTube any more.

We tend to let him look at our phones for a few minutes to brush his teeth (he hates it so the couple of minutes playing with the phone usually buys us enough time). Last week I heard my partner saying “no, that’s not nice!” and our son crying because the phone had been taken off him. Turns out he had been watching one of those ubiquitous ‘Mummy Finger Daddy Finger’ videos and it had animals fighting each other in

I was upset about it at the time and now there seems to be news all the time about apps and videos aimed at kids being something horrible instead (like the Blaze app that went viral). I want to stop him using YouTube altogether and only have access to “safe” stuff like CBeebies content.

My partner says I’m overreacting and he’s got all his settings such that our son won’t see anything harmful. But I don’t really want to take the risk.

Who is BU?

Heard it all now. A 2 year old watching youtube.
How did we manage to brush kids' teeth years ago?

My 15 month old watches Peppa pig on my phone while I change his bum. It’s the only way I can get him to lie still and it comes straight off him afterwds.

What lazy parenting.

FGS teach your toddler that teeth brushing is a non negotiable thing we have to do and it doesn't require a screen to do so.

My eldest is 10 and I've only recently let him start looking at YouTube, I'm not a fan and he had to ask what he wants to look at first. He was watching some videos one day (nothing bad ) and as I walked past I caught sight of the comments underneath. They were horrendous, full of swearing and horrible name calling. We have parental controls set high but there will always be this shit that you cannot get rid of. I bloody hate the YouTube generation.

Ditch YouTube and YouTube kids unless you are watching it with your son and you’re the one clicking on the videos. My DD came across one of these WTF videos where Mickey and Minnie try to knife each other. I was only out of the room for two minutes when I left her with my tablet so she wouldn’t wake up the grand parents following me around as it was really early and I needed a wee. Now I stick to Amazon Prime and Netflix. She has her own profile so it will only show stuff related to what she’s been watching. I also download stuff to watch for her when we go out to eat (I like my food at least half warm!)

As for people who say you shouldn’t let a toddler anywhere near a tablet or computer, it all depends on how you approach it. My DD who is nearly three has always been really curious about computers, tablets and phones for some reason. So I let her play games on my tablet but I interact with her when she plays. So she asks me a lot of questions or show me what she’s doing and I ask her a lot of questions too. I’ve never had to take the tablet from her as she will naturally move on to another ‘real life’ game like Play-doh, dress up, colouring, football in the park etc... For her it’s just another game.

Can I recommend Raffi's "brush your teeth" song for teeth brushing distraction. My DCs love it

ETA- I have the episodes downloaded to my phone so he isn’t on any internet site and obviously couldn’t work it anyway!

My dd watches tv, not YouTube. She’s 9. It really is best not to introduce it in the first place.

Another way to change a nappy is to sit on the floor with them sideways and put your leg over so they can't wriggle away, or on a changing table where they can't go anywhere. It doesn't require a screen at all and is another example of how parents will shove a screen at a child for an easy life, no matter how short a time.

I will sometimes put a video on YouTube for my 2 year old that I know is safe (ie one of the Little Baby Bum ones) while I’m cooking dinner and we sing the songs together. However I put the tablet somewhere she can’t reach it!

I used to let my then two year old watch nursery rhyme videos or peppa pig but when I tried to take it off her she went crazy. So I stopped it all. We now allow her a very small amount of time on the kindle tablet which has good kids settings. She can play with a few apps on there and practise reading. But that's it. Definitely stop it!

What on earth did we do with kids before screens. I'm sure they brushed their teeth, got their nappies changed, ate out etc before screens filled their every challenging moment with animated shite. if you don't want your two year old to watch you tube, don't let him - its not compulsory.

I'm really surprised how many people are shocked with a 2 year old watching YouTube.

My 3 year old watches YouTube on my phone. Obviously always supervised. Usually to avoid her having a meltdown in unavoidable situations like being on a bus or in a queue. Or when she's refusing to comply with something that's necessary like get her in the pushchair to get to nursery.

There's lots of cute and fun videos. She loves baby shark for example.

As long as it's supervised and moderation, I don't see the problem.

Flashthesloth a changing table with DS would be dangerous, he could wriggle out of my hold and fall off.

I don’t see how giving him my phone with Peppa pig moving on the screen is any different than giving him a light up musical toy to play with while I do it. Surely any toy could be deemed “lazy parenting”. It’s 2 minutes, it’s harmless and it stops him getting distressed.

Without it I have to physically pin him down to change him. As soon as I loosen my grip to put on a new nappy or get a wipe he will wriggle out of my hold. He is incredibly strong.

Shoddy parent here too. We've used YouTube for nappy changes and tooth brushing. She plays with plenty of toys and interacts with humans as well so I don't see the issue with a moderate amount of supervised screen time.

Ejphrasis When you say YouTube do you mean the original YouTube or kids YouTube (or both)? Thanks.

I'll be honest that I don't know the ins and outs of the kids YouTube - but to my mind I just never wanted it to be something my son knew existed till much older.

Apart from anything, there so much crap, I'd rather he watched something 'proper' if he's going to spend any time on a screen. which he often does too much Tinga tinga was a huge hit for a long time for example, as was octonauts; I now have a David Attenborough and wild life prog obsessed child which is lovely as we can all watch that together. (And various bits on CBeebies, cbbc and Netflix. I prefer no ads)

It's a shame as we did watch some old fireman Sam episodes when he was younger (and I was trying to get antibiotics into him) and he loved them. But he hadn't worked out how to operate it at that point. As soon as he did I took it out of the equation.

JaneyEJones- I clearly meant in terms of parenting for those 2 minutes I am using it. I obviously know the physical difference between a mobile phone and a musical toy!

To add, I didn't want a child of 5-7 who is YouTube obsessed as I find at work.

You tube kids??

In the country I live in, screens are not advised for under 4 yr olds (at the earliest), something to do with vision/pixels/nerve signals.
So your DC has a tantrum... he will grow out of it.

I have started to use a tooth brushing song on YouTube. We have previously used and still regularly use homemade toothbrushing stories and song but the YouTube toothbrushing song (Littlebabybum) works best. Toothbrushing is a non negotiable but if your 2 year old closes their mouth and refuses to open it for toothbrushing you must find a way round it. I must be a shoddy parent too.

I don’t allow unsupervised access to the internet. Together we watch a few ceebies programmes and my toddler loves looking at photos of herself.

When my son got wriggly with nappy changes, we let him put stickers or look at the ones he'd put on under the drawer that we could pull out below the changing table.

I only used a screen for teeth as I simply wasn't going to allow rotten teeth and he absolutely detested it. It didn't last long and is happy to do teeth now.

We put up with squirmy restaurant visits and whiney car rides finding other things to do so that screens are never relied on in those situations.

Only really 'rely' on a screen when he or I are poorly or we have to do something where its best he's occupied like diy or something. He does watch it for pleasure though.

I don’t let my 3 year old use any apps - there will always be things they don’t like but that’s life. Part of being a parent is teaching that life lesson. My son doesn’t like his teeth brushing, getting dressed, going to bed... I parent him, not plug him into a device

"I'm really surprised how many people are shocked with a 2 year old watching YouTube."

I'm not shocked by a two-year-old watching stuff on Youtube. I'm shocked that they're the one tapping on the screen choosing the videos, with little enough supervision that they end up watching something unpleasant. A toddler doesn't have anywhere near the skills to recognise what will and won't be nice to watch.

With a TV I think most parents would be choosing the programs their DC watch, not letting the toddler channel-surf with the remote. But that's essentially what OP has been letting her child do.

A two year old doesn't even need to know YouTube exists! Ffs what happened to parenting? Do we need a fucking app for everything?

It would appear so, sadly.

Fuck knows what would happen if people had to experience a few days of parenting young children with no internet or mobile screen device at all and just a colouring book, some nursery rhymes and the odd Disney video, like wot we did.

I fear the end of the world would be nigh. People would spontaneously combust or hurl themselves and their children off cliffs of something.