A Phone to Keep the Baby Quiet: The Mistake Most of Us Make

Don’t use the phone to quiet a crying baby or to make a toddler eat. The World Health Organization says babies under one should have no screen time at all, and children aged 2 to 4 no more than one hour a day. Give the hands something to hold and the eyes a face to look at instead.

It happens in almost every house. The baby is crying and nothing works. The toddler won’t open his mouth for one more spoon. The visit is going on too long, the queue is too slow. So the phone comes out, a cartoon starts, and suddenly there is peace.

I understand why. But this is a mistake, and we start making it very early, at one year, at a year and a half. The phone becomes the thing that makes the child quiet, makes him eat, keeps him busy. And it keeps doing that job for years.

What the numbers say

In its 2019 guidelines, the World Health Organization says babies under one year “should not be getting any screen time at all.” For children aged 2 to 4, it recommends “no more than one hour of sedentary screen time” a day, and says less is better.

Those are not the numbers of a strict family. They are the numbers of the world’s health body.

Why the phone at mealtimes is the worst place

When a child eats in front of a screen, three things get lost:

1. He doesn’t notice he is full, or that he is hungry. Eating becomes something that happens while he watches.
2. He doesn’t learn to sit at a table with people. The family meal is where a small child learns to wait, to talk, to look at faces.
3. He learns that food comes with a show. Take the show away, and he won’t eat. Now you need the phone for every meal.

Why the phone for crying is a trap

A crying baby or a screaming toddler is learning, every time, how upset ends. If it ends with a bright screen, the child learns: I need the screen to feel better. He never learns to calm down with a person, with a hug, with a song, with time.

Then, at four and five, the screen becomes the only thing that works, and taking it away causes the biggest meltdowns of the day. See Meltdown When Screen Time Ends.

What to do instead

At the table

• Sit with him. Eat with him. Your face is the show.
• Small portions. If he isn’t hungry, the meal ends. No chasing with a spoon.
• Let him touch, hold, try to feed himself, even if it’s messy.

When he cries

• Pick him up. Walk. Hum. Change the room.
• Name it simply: “You’re tired. I’m here.”
• Give it time. Some crying needs to be held, not stopped.

In the queue, the car, the waiting room

• Keep a small bag: a book, a little toy, crayons and paper.
• Talk about what you can see. “Look, a red car. Where is a blue one?”
• Accept a little noise. Children are allowed to be children in public.

When does a phone make sense?

Later. Much later than most of us start. My own view is around eight, when a child can understand what a phone is for, and you can talk about it with him. I wrote about that in What Age Should a Child Get a Phone?.

When to bring in a doctor or counsellor

Talk to your child’s doctor if he refuses most foods, isn’t gaining weight, or if crying seems constant and impossible to settle.

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Next step

Make a screen plan for your home. Screen-free times, a calm ending, and the official limits for the youngest. Screen plan → What happened before the meltdown? →

Sources

• World Health Organization (2019). To grow up healthy, children need to sit less and play more. who.int