Tablet for your little one?

Question

I’m thinking of getting my son one of those fire tablets for Christmas but I’m not sure about it. I don’t want him to get dependent on it and want it all the time. We have enough temper tantrums lately 😅 However, my sister has a daughter a few months older than my son and her daughter has one & has learned a lot from it. There are a lot of educational games that I know he would love and it would help him with counting, abc’s and all that. Do you think it’s too early for a tablet?

Answer

If you are thinking of getting it for educational purposes, I would say no. My son has never used a tablet and up until 20 months really never watched tv and he learned his alphabet, numbers, and colors by 18 months. Learning is different for each child but tablets don’t necessarily speed things up. Learning through play and interaction with others is the best tool there is. You’ll have more than enough time for your kid to ignore you later in life. This is the time to enjoy the moments before technology intervenes.

Answer

We got the Amazon fire tablet for my daughter because we were taking a 10 hour road trip. I sat in the back with her for a bit to help her figure out a couple games and show her some videos. We were hesitant to buy it, but idk how we would have made it through the road trip without it. We didn’t want her to become attached to it, so we introduced it as a “car tablet”. She only gets it if we are in the car. It does not come inside the house or a restaurant, etc. Going to see how long we can keep this going lol. But for now, it’s just for the car.

Answer

We got one for our daughter and to be honest it has been one of our biggest regrets. It was good to see her growing confident in using it, and our rationale was the world is becoming more tech savvy, schools using iPads etc and it’s just becoming a part of the world we live in now but oh my good god the tantrums it caused are another level because she wanted it all the time.
We tried to allow dedicated times of day but my OH works a lot of hours and I’m almost 30 weeks pregnant so the time would creep up a little and if we tried to switch it off, or we didn’t get it out when she asked for it, it would lead to huge meltdowns.
We went cold turkey and hid it about a week ago and I don’t foresee it coming back down for a while now.
I’m not against a bit of screen time, but for us a tablet wasn’t a good idea/experience xx

Answer

i bought my daughter a tablet before she was born tbh. 💀
we obviously didn’t introduce it to her until she got a little bit older, but i’ve never had a problem taking it away from her, or her having a dependency to it.
it’s all about moderation. 
maybe an hour or two of screen time a day, with educational programming and games. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Answer

We got our daughter a Fire tablet when her brother was born in July. My hope was that she would entertain herself a bit so I could tend to the baby. I was wrong. 🤦🏻‍♀️ She honestly couldn’t care less about it. If she does play with it, she is usually over it in about 10 minutes. She prefers to play with her dolls and other toys. She’s a very active little girl so the tablet is kind of boring to her. We also have always had the TV on and she couldn’t care less about that either unless she is sick or taking a breather from running around the house. 😂

Answer

After watching the kids I used to babysit with their tablets, I am trying to hold off on getting my daughter one. I’ll give her my phone with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on if she won’t stop screaming in public, but I’m trying to hold out on getting her her own device. My friend’s son has a tablet though and he’s only a little older. I think he just watches shows though and isn’t quite playing games yet.

Answer

My two year old’s is hidden. We got it for an international flight and she only gets it if absolutely necessary, travel being one of those things. But I’m worried about her eyes too because bad eyes run in my family so minimizing that close up screen time is super important.

Answer

No no no!!! Don’t do it!!! TV is one thing but devices are addictive. And if you think you have temper tantrums now try taking that device away 😅 😳

Answer

Grandparents bought my daughter an IPad mini for her 2nd birthday. The only games on it are coloring. My family lives far away so there’s also FaceTime. My daughter knows how to go FaceTime people so we only have immediate family in the contacts. She doesn’t ask to play with it often and I only let her use it every few days. She’ll use it for maybe 20 minutes then be done.

Answer

I think we'll hold off. We def do screen time, but she doesn't really care about TV that much, and tablets seem like an expensive toy she could throw and break during a tantrum😅. Once she gets a little more self-regulated, maybe like 3 or 4 or even 5, I'd consider it.

Tablet for your little one?

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