WRITER Charlotte Owen, 38, from Leeds, turns to technology for up to seven hours a day to keep calm when her little ones have a meltdown.
Here, she talks to Fabulous about why she regrets doing it.
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It’s 5 a.m. when I feel my 14-month-old son, Seb, crawl into the middle of our bed.
He has already woken up three times during the night and my husband Alex and I are completely exhausted.
If we don’t get out of bed and start the day, he throws a tantrum – so I give him my phone.
While he hour Hey Duggee on iPlayer, we steal another 30 minutes of sleep.
Some mornings we feel guilty about shoving the phone in their face, but if we refuse, we’ll yell, scream, or throw toys.
These tantrums will last until we give in and he picks up the phone.
The so-called “crypad” habit – using technology to calm a child – is a habit we just can’t break.
I’m sorry I started it, especially since a recent report from Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary found that giving kids phones or tablets to calm their anger actually makes their behavior worse.
In fact, experts claim that using salts prevents them from learning how to manage their emotions and can lead to “more severe emotion regulation problems.”
When Seb was about 12 months old, our phones became “digital dummies”, a technological tactic we used to calm him down.
In the early days, he didn’t sleep well and I went from enjoying seven or eight hours a night, before he came, to blocks lasting three hours at most.
It was an almighty shock.
During the first two years of his life, he would wake up at 5am – and that was after waking up to four times during the night.
Sometimes he would scream until we rocked him back to sleep, then start screaming again as soon as we put him down.
First thing in the morning, his cries would be joyous and happy – the exact opposite of how Alex, 37, and I felt as we struggled to open our bleary eyes.
We soon got into the habit of tucking Seb into our bed, but those playful giggles quickly escalated into frustration as we begged him to go back to sleep.
‘Our phones have become digital dummies’
Seb would throw tantrums, arching his back and crying as we tried to pull him away from the ends of the bed to keep him safe.
But if we gave him a phone and his favorite episode of Brum – a children’s TV show about an old car – he would soon calm down. It meant we could close our eyes for a little longer.
At first, Seb’s attention span was short, but by a year and a half, he would happily watch up to an hour.
When he got bored with one programme, we would switch to another: In The Night Garden, Supertato, Peppa Pig, Bluey, Paw Patrol.
And while the “mommy guilt” ran deep, there was no doubt that screens made parenting easier.
Soon he was talking and his first words of the morning turned to, “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 repented.
If you’re a parent who claims you don’t do the same, then either your baby sleeps through the night – lucky you – or you’re lying.
A House of Commons report published in May this year found that children exposed to more than two hours a day in front of a screen had “worse working memory, processing speed, attention levels and language skills”.
“I’ve tried to avoid relying 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 also detrimental to their well-being.
I’ve tried to avoid relying on technology as a babysitter.
Only recently, we booked a table in our local pub for Sunday lunch, armed with a supply of toys and books – the sort of things so-called ‘good’ parents use to entertain their children .
But Sebi soon became restless, wanting to stay in his chair while we waited for the food to arrive.
In a panic, we took off the headphones and connected them to Alex’s phone, desperate to nip a full-blown tantrum in the bud.
Even in soft play, when Seb has come to me crying, I’ve used a quick five minute phone time to stop his tears until he feels ready to come back and play.
And when Alex is at work and I have the arduous task of juggling parenting chores, I rely on screens to keep the kids quiet.
Despite what parenting books say, it’s a lot easier to stick Seb, now three, in front of a screen than to ask him for help emptying the dishwasher.
Of course, this means that Seb’s total screen time will soon increase.
An American study showed that, on average, children between the ages of two and four look at screens between two and 2.5 hours a day.
On “good” days, or if Seb has been in daycare, it’s about an hour.
But when Alex is at work and I feel fed up with my parenting, it hits seven.
“Who has the energy to be a parent 24/7?”
His one-year-old sister Harriet’s screen time is also high.
While she’s still not interested in phones, 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 doubles,” the only way to cope is by calming her down with a screen.
I know I’m also guilty of leading by (bad) example.
I “bump” my kids every day — scrolling through my phone while ignoring them — which, according to researchers at the University of Texas, can hinder a child’s language development.
I just can’t stop, even though I know I have to “live in the moment”.
But who has the energy to be a parent 24/7 anyway?
Yes, I may not be 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’re all trying to get through it as best we can.
How to remove them
KATHRYN MEWES, star of Channel 4’s The Three Day Nanny, reveals how to get your kids off crypads fast.
Day one
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“You have to set a very structured, child-focused day,” says Kathryn.
“Plan two activities – go to the park in the morning and the supermarket in the afternoon.
“Spend two 20-minute blocks playing alone with your child so they’re happy to have playtime alone.
“No screens on the first day – keep them busy, even though that high-intensity schedule isn’t realistic for more than the first 24 hours.”
The second day
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“Here, you need different arrangements of toys, books or Play-Doh, to keep them entertained when they’re looking for screens,” she says.
“Get the idea that you’re on a screen while you’re in front of them.
“To do this, engage in 20 minutes of regular play, but in the last five, tell them you’re going to make a phone call so they get used to the screens around them without being allowed access to them.”
Third day
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“Three blocks of 20 minutes of screen time a day is fine for kids, which allows moms to get on with things they need to do,” she explains.
“When you remove that screen, arm yourself with an activity you can get them into right away if they’re young, or explain to older kids that they can put the screen back after lunch or bath time.
“Suppress anger with distractions.”