We do not allow youtube, period.
I use the mr bubbles fragrance free dye free and it seems to be fine! Not sure if it’s clean.
We use everyone soap for bubble bath (hmmm maybe I should go back to unscented for B1’s face thing)
We will cast specific videos on the TV for specific purposes. Kids ballet, how it’s made type videos, Thomas the train during teeth brushing.
We don’t allow free access. We co watch on a large screen, no tablets.
We do youtube and most TV on the big TV. So adults are addicted but kids only ask for shows they know or specific topics (can you find the making of chocolate covered robot dinosaurs is an example, and no I cannot).
Or on laps.
Sometimes in the morning we give a kid a phone and B1 will just watch whatever we give one. B2 will navigate like a ninja and find all kinds of problems. But a happy mom with sleep is a better predictor than youtube
Sweet, thank you for answers! We need some YouTube use because our child has very specific niche interests that kids programming doesn’t deliver on. And also YouTube is cool and educational.
I think casting or screensharing with an adult is the right answer, since there’s none of the thumbnail and autorec bullshit. It’s going to be tough since Meowlet lives in a huge house of adults with smartphones, but I fight the good fight and hope for the best.
Yeah, no shade here on having to sleep sometimes, I did that when Meowlet was younger with YT kids.
Us too! Although not every idea. The evolution phase we needed to dive DEEP. Same with anatomy.
And it also lets us prep for new things - there is a ton of kids content on some things like dentists, but the cartoon version kinda kidwashes the experience.
We used to let it play on the big tv so we could keep a casual eye on things, but then it became all Minecraft videos and it was hard to tell one streamer from another. Eventually he started watching a channel where they would just do mean “pranks” on each other and generally being dicks, Kiddo started copying that behavior/language and there was some incident I don’t now recall that resulted in Youtube being taken off the tv entirely for a few years. (As a parent I suffered with this too because it means we can’t watch Taskmaster or other similar tv shows that are on Youtube.)
For a few years Youtube was only on my phone and maybe on my computer while I also sat there, but that was very limited.
We’re reintroducing it now that he has a hand-me-down PC which is in a public room and he’s older. I’m bookmarking specific channels he can watch and he needs to ask to watch anything else and have a grown up sitting with him. (He’s also at the age where he’s wanting to search for things on Google, heaven help me. I’m not ready for this, I will never be ready for this, can I have late 90s internet back for him to explore first please.) Oh we’ve also gotten into watching toothbrush timer videos in the morning on my phone because it magically makes cooperation happen instead of arguing/negotiating.
YouTube in our house is only allowed in the TV and supervised by adults. Like we use it for Yoga videos or watching gymnastics meets and things like that.
We have been struggling with this but recently implemented the Safe Vision app. This lets us curate safe channels only and puts a time limit. Its a lower limit than the tablet limit so its only for a distinct amount of time. It also got rid of the auto rec problems from both normal YT and kids YT. I thought kids YT was actually worse.
Tagging @Meowkins since I forgot to reply to the question.
Came here to mention this option, having heard of it recently but no experience with it (and I couldn’t remember the name). Glad someone beat me to it with both name and direct experience!
How many pairs of training undies do I need to potty train a 2 1/2 year old?
YMMV but you could skip buying them ahead of time if you’re willing/able to tolerate some cleaning. We had hardwood floors and used towels to cover some vulnerable areas for a few weeks (couch, rug, even the washable rug since it’s easier to wash a towel), and never used training undies. For a couple longer car rides I put water resistant pants on him to protect the car seat. I think we got pretty lucky and he had 3 days at home, 3 weeks of 0-2 accidents a day, and then was pretty good after that at age 2y 4mos (nighttime was ~3.5y). You could always start without and then get the training undies if necessary.
Amazing, thank you!
I’d get a single package, 3-6 and then decide if they are working for you/if you need or want more.
Happily, I already have several pairs from @Economista to experiment with! No rubber pants, I will judge as I go if we need those.
I made kind of a hash of potty training the boys (started too early, took forever) if I seem surprisingly at sea for a third baby
We used a single package but we did a nontraditional low and slow potty training method. In my experience they will absolutely not keep pee from soaking through pants and on to the floor so we just used them for “practice days” alongside some naked practice days to keep the real underwear as more of a prize.
Youtube is signed in Kids Youtube only, and i have it locked to only channels or specific episodes I’ve shared with their accounts. So they cant search, but I will add stuff at their request.
I think I also heard about Safe Vision or similar recently and am intrigued but havent had time to look into it yet.
Yeah, we did the same thing re: YouTube kids, but he hated it because it had none of the content he wanted. So we settled on paying for YouTube and downloading videos on a tablet and giving him those. And then just redownloading when we needed to. It is… fine, I guess, but he will learn how to surpass that eventually.
Confession: My kids have essentially unlimited YouTube access. At their ages (12 and almost 14) it is no longer practical to monitor all their media consumption and I have shifted my focus more towards Internet safety, how the algorithms try to suck you in, etc. BB and I had a surprisingly productive conversation about porn this morning (I did most of the talking OFC).