Kid turned 1. What’s next?

[stassit]

Boy turned 1. Crawls like he’s straight out of the poltergeist and will walk with the walked but not on his own. Still working on solids but we cosleeping and he’s teething and still breast feeding so it’s going slowly.

My biggest point of concern is TV. When he was younger I wasn’t too concerned about letting Sesame Street just play while we hung out in the living room… but now he’s into cars and it’s a mix of cars 1/2/3 and Sesame Street. A couple hours a day easy. And it’s gone from background noise to something he actually likes to watch. I’m a stay at home dad and the allure of just chilling with him is definitely there…

How concerned should I be? What else could I be doing? I don’t wanna squander the opportunity our circumstances have given us. I realize how absolutely lucky we are to be okay with 1 parent home full time let alone it being me.

Just don’t want to fail my kid.

Edit: holy crap. Dads show up. Thank you, dads!

 

[raphelmathew]

@stassit I think you’re leaning on the TV too hard. It is unlikely that your kid will get tired of TV. You could watch 6 hours a day and he’ll still be fine with it. You can tell yourself all you want that it’s educational content and it talks about emotions and numbers and words, but 1 year olds don’t need that. 2 year olds don’t need that. Infants and toddlers need motor control, action reaction, textures, reaction time. You get zero of those from the TV.

One thing that is stupid but really helpful is make a list of games you find online or in books or come up with yourself. Have that list accessible either on your phone or on a piece of paper taped to the wall (we literally did that). When you don’t know what to do, try something from the list. My wife found one that was putting packing tape between two legs of a chair and having our son place ball pit balls on the tape. He did that for over an hour. Take strips of paper and make tunnels for cars to go under. It’s exhausting, trust me. Tv is so easy and relaxing and cuddly, but your kid isn’t getting anything from it

 

[aziluv5]

@raphelmathew We're approaching 3 and do about 30 minutes of screen time a day. I'm shocked at how much more ok I am with games than shows. Dude just turns into a zombie during shows, but with games you can see him thinking and trying at least. Plus, it's at least moderately engaging so he gets tired of them after a while. We do the hungry caterpillar game and the pbs kids games.

 

[raphelmathew]

@aziluv5 Good tips for the games. We’re approaching 3 as well and while he loves playing Kirby dream buffet, he can’t do the controls at all. Will check out those games.

 

[nannergurl14]

@aziluv5 The hungry caterpillar game is a favorite here, the only mobile game I have ever spent money on.

 

[aziluv5]

@nannergurl14 Once they get bored of that, they can move on to the next Team 17 classic, Worms Armageddon

 

[daviddeikun]

@raphelmathew Trying the packing tape idea tonight lol. Sounds fun