3yo behaviour after hospital/lots of screentime

[clinellwipe]

Hi,

My 3yo son had been ill since first week of January - vomiting and abdominal pain for 7 weeks resulting in two admissions to hospital and lots of unpleasant medical interventions (blood tests, enemas, NG tube etc etc). In this time period he wasn't at nursery at all and was often very tired as up all night being sick - to be honest we were in survival mode and there was no real routine and he watched A LOT of tv and when in hospital was on his iPad/tablet thing whilst connected to various machines etc.

Now we're coming out the other side after a diagnosis and a medication plan but he is addicted to screens now! His behaviour/emotions are more all over the place and I suspect that a lot of that is the medical trauma but excess screen time not going to help that in any way.

I think I might get flamed here, and I know the obvious thing to do is to go cold turkey , but can anyone give me tips/advice? How long will it take for his behaviour to get 'better'? I've been so soft on him whilst he's been poorly (and I don't regret that) but now he's getting stronger I need to get him off the devices!!

Ps I'm not anti screens and I think CBeebies etc has its place , but he's lost interest in his toys and asks for tv all the time so I know the balance isn't right now

Do you have to go cold turkey? Or could you find a middle ground, set a limit and reduce it to a level you feel comfortable with?

Don't go cold turkey, gradually reduce it and try to replace some of the time with new interests and toys. Exercise videos for toddlers may help and Little Einsteins was great for finding new things to try after an episode.

More outside opportunities as the weather gets better too. It will take time, try not to be too harsh on yourself or expectations of him improving.

When screen time had crept up due to difficult circumstances, we went with a clearly defined routine of when screens did/didn't happen – e.g., 2 episodes of Bluey after lunch or 'while mummy/daddy is cooking dinner' or whatever works for you. For us that worked fairly quickly, and didn't rule out having different rules for when poorly, travelling, etc.

For the medical trauma, we found it helped when we kitted out their doctor's kit with specific things to let DD2 act out her treatment (pulse-ox, nebuliser mask feature prominently in ours, although there were a few other bits added as well). For a while one of her teddies needed a full round of obs and treatment morning and night.

Tell him the ipad/tablets are broken and have been sent off to be fixed.

And that youtube/games have gone from your phone (delete them)

Then have a timer on your phone and let him have an hour of TV. Or one film of his choice.

Get lots of physical/messy play things into do as a distraction.

We had a similar situation Op, my son was younger but he went through a very tough period of back to back bacterial tonsillitis episodes, we were pretty much at a&e every other weekend with 40+ fevers for about 3 months, and countless courses of antibiotics. It was actually the (very lovely) a&e nurses that tried to distract him with cocomelon on their iPad, and we then got into a vicious cycle of using it to distract from hospital visits/ trying to get antibiotics and calpol in him.

I agree with other posters, maybe don’t go cold turkey and just gradually reduce it? And lots of distraction/ outside time when he is asking for it (if he’s fine to play outside health wise). It’s really hard but definitely gradual is the way to go

I would also go cold turkey. We did a lot of screen time when my son had RSV at 20 months and was admitted to hospital. Once he was better, we avoided spending time in the living room, hid the iPad and got out of the house as much as a possible. We've found a balance now.

I appreciate he was a lot younger so things are different, but not being in a room with the tv helped a lot.

Get rid of the screens altogether and re introduce in tiny tiny proportions when he is older and less addicted

Go out more so he’s distracted.

If you can’t do that then take batteries out of the remote controls or put tablet on a timer so it cuts out after a fixed time. Keep the charge low do it appears “broken” when the charge runs out. He will be angry when it cuts out but addicts need to go through that stage.

Be mindful of him not seeing you on your phone because that will be a reminder. The warmer weather should make it easier to go out and do new things.

Wh4en I was pregnant with terrible HG my toddler had a LOT of screen time. It was so bad at one point he would put him to sleep watching youtube after I had fallen asleep! I weaned him off quite easily, just made sure we had plenty of time out of the house and he got really into arts and crafts. Looking back I wish I didn't waste so much time feeling guilt around his screen time usage.

Whenever my daughter has a prolonged illness we have to do 3 days with ideally no screen time at most 10 minutes a day. That's usually enough to reset her expectations back down to normal levels and she goes back to toys.
We have learnt by trial and error which shows she's happy to have one or two of and then go back to playing (JoJo and gran gran etc) and those where she could watch for 25h a day and it still wouldn't be enough (paw patrol).
When she's going to have longer periods of TV when she or us are sick we try to fill some of the day with films or grown up TV. The masked singer is a big hit, the combination of bright characters and music is a bit but if she gets bored through the talking she will have a snooze or go and get a toy to play with whilst watching so the TV doesn't have her undivided attention. She's usually better at reducing amounts again afterwards