Writer Charlotte Owen, 38, from Leeds, uses technology for up to 7 hours a day to keep calm when her toddlers have meltdowns.
Here he talks to Fabulous about why he bitterly regrets it.
It’s 5 a.m. when I feel my 14-month-old son Seb squirm in the middle of our bed.
He has already been up three times in the night and me and my husband Alex are completely exhausted.
If we don’t jump out of bed and start the day, he’ll throw a tantrum – so I hand him my phone.
While he watches Hey Duggee on iPlayer, we stole another 30 minutes of sleep.
Sometimes we feel guilty in the morning when we shove the phone in his face, but if we refuse, we start yelling, screaming or throwing toys.
These tantrums will last until we give up and he gets the phone.
The so-called “crypad” bad habit – using technology to soothe a child – is one we just can’t seem to break.
I bitterly regret starting this, especially since a recent report from Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary found that giving kids phones or tablets to calm a tantrum actually makes their behavior worse.
In fact, experts say that using cryptographic blocks prevents them from learning to manage their emotions and can lead to “more serious problems with emotion regulation.”
When Seb was about 12 months old, our phones became “digital dummies”, a technology tactic we used to calm him down.
In the early days the sleep was not good and I went from seven or eight hours a night before he came to blocks of three hours at most.
It was an almighty shock.
For the first two years of his life, he woke up at 5am – after waking up to four times a night.
Sometimes he would scream until we rocked him back to sleep and then start screaming again as soon as we put him down.
First thing in the morning, his cries would be cheerful and happy – the exact opposite of how Alex, 37, and I felt as we struggled to open our bleary eyes.
We soon got used to bringing Seb into our bed, but those playful giggles quickly turned to frustration as we begged him to go back to sleep.
“Our phones have become digital dummies”
Seb was throwing tantrums, arching his back and crying as we tried to pull him away from the edges of the bed to safety.
But if we gave him a phone and his favorite episode of Brum – a children’s TV show about a vintage car – he would soon calm down. This meant we could close our eyes a little longer.
At first, Seb’s attention span was short, but by the time he was a year and a half, he would happily watch up to an hour.
When he got tired of one program, we moved on to the next: In The Night Garden, Supertato, Peppa Pig, Bluey, Paw Patrol.
And while the “mom guilt” ran deep, there was no denial that made parenting easy.
Soon he was talking and his first words of the morning turned into, “Can I watch Paw Patrol on your phone mommy?”.
If I said no, he would burst into tears and refuse to be comforted until we backed off.
If you’re a parent who says you don’t do anything like that, then either your baby sleeps through the night—lucky you—or you’re lying.
A House of Commons report published in May this year revealed that children exposed to more than two hours a day of screen time had “poorer working memory, processing speed, attention levels and language skills”.
“I tried not to rely on technology”
These findings are alarming, but I would argue that being raised by parents who are at breaking point because they are so stressed is damaging to their health as well.
As a nanny, I tried not to rely on technology.
We only recently booked a table at our local pub for Sunday lunch, armed with a supply of toys and books – the kind of stuff so-called ‘good’ parents use to keep their children entertained.
But Seb was soon restless, wanting to stand up on a chair while we longed for the food to arrive.
Panicking, we pulled out his headphones and connected them to Alex’s phone, desperately trying to nip a full blown tantrum in the bud.
Even during a gentle game, when Seb came to me crying, I resorted to a quick five minutes on the phone to stop his tears until he felt ready to come back and play.
And when Alex is at work and I have the difficult task of juggling housework with parenting, I rely on screens to keep the kids settled.
Despite what parenting books say, it’s a lot easier to shove now-three-year-old Seb in front of a screen than it is to ask him to help empty the dishwasher.
Of course, this means that Seb’s total screen time will soon fill up.
An American study showed that children between the ages of two and four spend an average of two to 2.5 hours a day watching screens.
On “good” days, or if Seb was in nursery, it’s around an hour.
But when Alex is at work and I’m feeling tired from parenting, it’s seven.
“Who has the energy to be a 24/7 parent?”
His one-year-older sister Harriet’s screen time is also increasing.
While she’s not interested in phones yet, she often stares blankly at the massive TV in the front room while Seb watches Bluey.
And I know that when she hits the “terrible twos” the only way I’m going to deal with it is to calm her down with a screen.
I know I am also guilty of setting a (bad) example.
I “pub” my kids daily—scrolling on my phone while ignoring them—which can hinder a child’s speech development, according to researchers at the University of Texas.
I just can’t stop even though I know I should “live in the moment”.
But who has the energy to be a 24/7 parent?
Yes, maybe I’m not the fun and engaging parent I should be – and I worry that we’ve created a monster, so to speak, or that we’re stifling our children’s creativity.
But motherhood is hard and we all try to get through it as best we can.
How to unlearn them
KATHRYN MEWES, star of Channel 4’s The Three Day Nanny, reveals how to quickly wean your children off the ‘craps’.
Day first
“You have to set up a very structured day centered around the baby,” says Kathryn.
“Plan two activities – go to the park in the morning and the supermarket in the afternoon.
“Spend two blocks of 20 minutes playing only with your child so that they are happy to play alone.
“No screens at all the first day – keep them busy, even if this high-intensity schedule isn’t realistic for more than the first 24 hours.”
The second day
“Here you need different sets of toys, books or Play-Doh to keep them occupied when they ask for screens,” she says.
“Give them the idea that you’re on the screen when they’re in front of them.
“To do this, engage in regular 20 minutes of play, but during the last five, tell them you’re going to call so they can get used to the screens around them without having access to them.”
Day three
“Three blocks of 20 minutes of screen time a day is fine for kids, which allows moms to focus on the things they need to,” she explains.
“When you take the screen away, arm yourself with an activity that you can take them straight into if they’re young, or explain to older children that they can have the screen back after lunch or a bath.
“Overcome tantrums with distraction.”