Mum Guilt

Struggling with guilt over screen time the past few days. Our son goes through phases of waking up super early around 5am and thanks to the bloody clocks going back it’s now become 4am. He still has a nap in the middle of the day and everyday we get out in the first half of the day either to the park or some kind of activity out of the house. Problem is that it’s not getting light til 8am and nothing else opens til 9-10 so that first 4-8am chunk my husband and I are absolutely dead, it’s too early to do loud playing so we’re ending up using the tv or an iPad mostly to keep him occupied til it’s an acceptable time of day… If he woke up at 6 then I’d be ok with him playing loud as it’s a more acceptable time of day for him to be awake… we’re in a mid terrace so I’m wary of the neighbours 😬 Really wish there was a overnight lit park or a softplay that opened at 6am 😂 I guess I’m just looking for some reassurance that a few hours of morning screen time isn’t going to mess him up beyond repair 😂

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Of course it's not. You've got to do what you've got to do to survive. There'd lots of educational apps you can use on the iPad. But you could also encourage other quiet activities - drawing, sticker books, platdough, puzzles, stories to break up the time if you are worried 😊

Have you tried shortening nap to see if he sleeps more at night? 4am is tough.

@Jo tried shortening to 1hr and it changed nothing… tried skipping it completely a couple of times but only got an additional 40mins-1hr at night but he was utterly FERAL from 3pm on those days so we try not to skip the nap and cap it to 2hrs 😂

It will be fine, you do what you need to do to survive.

4am must be so difficult. You're doing an amazing job, honestly you must be exhausted. Do what you have to do. Our TV is never off, only half watched but I'd go mad without it. Esp that hour of the day.

U could try setting up how much screen time you allow by setting up parent control. That's what I did on my son's Amazon Kids tablet, and whenever my son puts it down, I pause his tablet from my phone as I downloaded parent control, so I control his tablet.

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