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<\/p>\nThe point of this blog post is not\u00a0to convince anyone that our choice is better or worse than anyone else\u2019s\u00a0choice, it is just to share our journey and support anyone else who may want to go this route\u00a0and let them know that yes, it is possible to do this.<\/p>\n
My husband and I are not unfamiliar with the experience of saying I am going\u00a0to do something as a parent when I was pregnant and having people scoff or\u00a0dismiss our plans. Very few people were outwardly supportive of our strict\u00a0Babywise plan<\/a> from the beginning, but most came on board after seeing the\u00a0results. After all, our now 2-yo has slept through the night every night\u00a0since she was 7 weeks old. <\/p>\n What I have found is that often times if someone else wished they had a goal\u00a0or stuck to it but didn\u2019t, they like to project that on others. So, when my When we did continue to succeed in our choice, others became almost So why did we say no screen time? Well like most parents, before having our\u00a0daughter we did a significant amount of reading and learning about having a\u00a0child and child development. We also just looked around us to see and learn\u00a0from what others were doing. One thing that we came across consistently was\u00a0that screen time at an early age does more harm than good and the Academy of\u00a0Pediatrics<\/a> has said for years\u00a0that they do not recommend any screen time other\u00a0than Face-time for kids under 2. <\/p>\n It is really as simple as that. Everything I read and observed made us The absolute most important thing is your own commitment to the choice. Don\u2019t be afraid to let those around you know that you are not exposing your Sometimes we just had to leave the room and go play elsewhere to avoid the\u00a0television. Extreme? Maybe. But it was essential to my own commitment that I\u00a0didn\u2019t go down a perceived slippery slope in my own mind. <\/p>\n Ultimately it just about making it a habit. Something that I kept telling As important as it was to us to eliminate screen time, I was also realistic As much as I may have wanted couch cuddles while watching a movie with her\u00a0some nights, I knew that 2 years in the long run \u00a0is not a big deal and![\"two](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lovelaughexplore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_9015-scaled.jpg\")
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husband and I said we would have zero screen time for our daughter until she\u00a0was 2, we were essentially met with laughter versus support. \u201cOh just wait,\u201d\u00a0\u201cyah we thought that too,\u201d \u201coh that\u2019s what every new parent says,\u201d were a\u00a0few of the responses on repeat. <\/p>\n
defensive of their different decisions, as if, by our choice to avoid
screens, I was damning their choice to use them. It really felt
uncomfortable sometimes, almost as if I was constantly having to tell people\u00a0that I was not judging them, I was just stating what we were doing.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWhy we chose to do this<\/h3>\n
realize we did not want to have Galia around screens, so we said we weren\u2019t
going to. As I mentioned at the beginning, the point of this blog post is
not to convince anyone that our choice is better or worse than anyone else\u2019s
choice, the point is to support anyone else who may want to go this route
and let them know that yes, it is possible to do this.<\/p>\nHow to avoid Screen time<\/h3>\n
Commit<\/h4>\n
There are 100% going to be times where you just need your baby\/toddler to be\u00a0distracted by something else so you have a second to do something, or you\u00a0are exhausted and don\u2019t really want to interact, you just want to watch tv\u00a0yourself. Find something else. Make sure you have enough books and engaging\u00a0toys to keep your child occupied. Galia was happy as a clam to sit on the\u00a0floor with her books if I needed to go to the bathroom. Go for a walk.
Sometimes when I was too exhausted to chase her around I would throw her in\u00a0the stroller\/bike stroller and just go outside and walk. If kids don\u2019t know\u00a0that screen time exists, they don\u2019t miss it. Ultimately it\u2019s your own mental\u00a0exercise in commitment though.<\/p>\nSpeak up<\/h4>\n
child to screen time in order to prevent them from turning on the
television. You\u2019ll start to realize how often people put on tv just as
background noise but don\u2019t really need it. We avoided any sort of event that
was centered around television, luckily there weren\u2019t many and when she was\u00a0younger it was easy. Almost every time I mentioned it to friends if we were\u00a0over at their houses, they were more than happy to turn the TV off or keep\u00a0it turned off. The few times that the TV was not able to be turned off leads\u00a0me to the next option.<\/p>\nLeave<\/h4>\n
myself was that our parents and grandparents did not have to deal with
screens, they just did not have them and they were able to manage just fine,
so it wasn\u2019t something necessary to get things done.<\/p>\nBe Prepared<\/h4>\n
and prepared. We had several long flights and drives where I had emergency\u00a0movies downloaded onto my phone\u2026just in case. One day we were traveling in\u00a0airports for almost 24 hours to include sleeping on a bench in the terminal\u00a0and I still never felt like I needed to pull out the movies. The toys,\u00a0snacks, and walking were distraction enough for her. I was exhausted but I\u00a0was still committed. <\/p>\n
would go fast. And it did.<\/p>\n