Watching YouTube before bed

[Grooveisintheheartnahnahnahnah]

Not sure if this is not a problem to do and I’m being precious.
Dp and I alternate toddler DD’s bedtime (turns 3 in the summer)
We do pjs, teeth, bath some night, stories etc. Dd normally takes a while to go to sleep and often faffs about and walks around the room, eventually getting into bed and falling asleep. I generally cuddle up to her, maybe sing and pretend to be asleep myself.
Dp watches YouTube videos with her on his phone..children’s ones, but usually bright, crazy ones about slime or Lego etc.
She watches a small amount of tv in the day (CBeebies or milkshake) and generally sieges the rest of the day in the garden, out in the woods walking our dog, at the beach or playing etc.
Do you think it’s ok for her at that age to be watching that much, especially before bed?

*To do wasn’t meant to be in there! 🤷🏻‍♀️

*Plays, not seiges 🙈

I would say that is more likely to stimulate her than make her sleepy

It's well documented that screens and blue light stimulates the brain making it harder to switch off and fall asleep. He needs to knock it off.

@TimeForTeaAndG That’s what I think. She obviously enjoys it and they cuddle up together and laugh etc, so I feel bad to try to stop that, but it doesn’t seem right at such a young age

@pumpkinpie01 I know 🤷🏻‍♀️

Does she fall asleep okay after watching it? It’s unlikely to do her lasting harm if it’s all part of her having an otherwise balanced day (which is sounds like she does) and might be your DHs way of spending time with her. If she goes off to sleep okay then I’d probably not worry. We personally do books but I know family members who often popped on a dvd for their children to fall asleep too and they were good sleepers!

Honestly he’s probably bored, I get the bath, teeth and story/cuddle time but she’s almost 3, the extra time to get her to sleep would wear on me, at that point I just wanted to have the rest of the evening to myself! Unless you want to keep this up for one, two+ years I would start transitioning her to falling asleep on her own. However I agree with you about YouTube, the stimulation is liable to keep her up even longer.

It's well documented that screens and blue light stimulates the brain making it harder to switch off and fall asleep. He needs to knock it off.

This. I think it’s setting her up for bad habits, like drinking squash or eating sugar.

She obviously enjoys it and they cuddle up together and laugh etc, so I feel bad to try to stop that

It sounds lovely, why doesn’t he read to her instead?

@Amammai He does books first aswell and then they cuddle up and watch. She does fall asleep but is up later than when it’s with me(probably because it’s more boring!)
I just worry about watching bright, crazy YouTube videos at that age, or if I’m being over the top.

@Laggartha They read a couple of books each time first and then a few videos before she sleeps.

@Wrenna She’s not at the stage where we can just say night and leave the room, I wish she was in lots of ways 🙈we stay with her until she falls asleep.

You’re not being over the top, there’s an emerging body of evidence that we have greatly underestimated the importance of sleep.

How about suggesting they replace videos with audio stories or even sleep meditations for kids?

I wouldn't worry about it like it's damaging her, but I also think it's a crap idea. But then I am the anti-TV nazi whose children never watch any...

How about putting on an audiobook for DD and then... maybe... leaving her to it?! If she's not loud and doesn't come out of the room, she can potter around and go to sleep when she's ready - which it sounds like she's doing anyway! I'd go nuts if my 3yo needed that much parenting to sleep every night. If you enjoy it then by all means carry on yourself, but don't be held hostage to it.

Yeah he’s being a bit crap.

If he really needs outside help, maybe he could make a short playlist of sleep songs or something, to make the transition away from videos less jarring. But in general I think it’s pretty bad to actively generate a dependence on technology to get to sleep, in one so young.

We banned you tube, my 3.5 year old was obsessed with it (just nursery rhymes and such like). We used to let him watch it for a while during the day, but when it was time to be switched off he used to throw almighty tantrums (never been like this with normal TV). I put it down to the pixels and colours being different because it was made to be watched on computer screens (I’m probably very wrong, but his reaction to it was so much stronger than normal TV programmes). He’s six now and he gets red in the face, over stimulated and overly focused on the CBeebies computer games (even the educational ones) and the numbots games that he goes on at school, so computer screen time is really limited now.

@PerspicaciousGreen How to make that transition though? She won’t go to sleep on her own and to walk out and leave her, she’d just get upset 😬really not sure how to go about it

@DeadGood It used to be a couple of the sleep songs, which are quite sweet and didn’t bother me too much. But I’ve noticed it’s a lot of silly videos (in my opinion) and just seems unnecessary, especially before sleep

Both my kids have a leap frog story cube to listen to if they are struggling to sleep which they will play quietly.

@Whatthechicken See this worries me...often in the day time now she’ll ask to watch these videos, but I say no and allow her to watch Bing or Tee & mo for example, which obviously isn’t massively educational, but quite sweet

The idea of having half an hour minimum away from a screen before bed is a good one. Bedtime stories would be better. Overall volume in total during the day seems OK, just the timing.

It will set up an expectation of watching screens in bed.

Kill it now before the battle bigs bigger.

Lazy parenting imo

Have you looked into something like the Moshi App? SIL swears by it for our 3 year old niece. They've graduated from listening to it in the room with her (and accidentally falling asleep) to being able to read a story, turn the app on and go enjoy the rest of their evening.

[quote Grooveisintheheartnahnahnahnah]@TimeForTeaAndG That’s what I think. She obviously enjoys it and they cuddle up together and laugh etc, so I feel bad to try to stop that, but it doesn’t seem right at such a young age[/quote]
I think you should just leave them to it and enjoy the break. It's a nice thing for dad to do. My dh used to cuddle up and watch maters tales with ds before bed and it's a nice memory they both have.