Screen-Free Babyhood: The First Six Months

Before Cyrus was born, I declared to the family at large that he would be a "screen-free baby." Now, I don't even know if this is an actual term or not, but I knew what I wanted for his babyhood, and it was a life of entertainments other than backlit screens with flashing lights and sounds and colors.

I'm not anti-technology. I'm a blogger! I appreciate social media, and the potential it gives me for creative expression and staying in touch with long-distant family and friends.

But...I am a little bit anti-technology. I appreciate all of the benefits...but...I think in many instances, the plethora of screens and technology we now live with sometimes deteriorate our quality of life rather than add to it. In the smartphone epidemic, to me, I see played out some words written by C.S. Lewis in his work of genius, The Screwtape Letters. Advice from a more experienced demon to his nephew on making his human's life less than worthwhile:

"You will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but also in conversations with those he cares nothing about, on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say...'I now see that I spent most my life doing in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”

I have many good memories of family movie nights when I was growing up, and time spent watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood while my mom was cooking dinner. I'm not intending on a screen-free childhood for Cyrus, but during this very early time of his life, I see no reason to start laying the groundwork for a future in which he naturally turns to any available screen at any available moment, simply because that's what is his ingrained habit.

We're nearly six months in to screen-free babyhood at this point, and I am under no illusions--I know the first six months are the easiest! But I have every intention of continuing as long as these habits are beneficial to our family life. 

What does screen-free babyhood look like?

For us, it just simply means that the baby isn't allowed to look at screens for entertainment purposes--with exceptions only for video calls with faraway family, and photo-taking. We do use Youtube for Cyrus, but not for videos, just for playing music for his daily dance-parties with Angel...and sometimes for playing hymns or classical music when I'm rocking him to sleep.

In addition, Angel and I generally stay off our computers or phones when we're taking care of him while he's awake. He often can't have our full attention, as there's lots of housework and other work and social activities that happen during his waking hours, but whenever he can have our full attention, I don't want a habit of taking care of him with one hand and checking email with the other to develop. This means that any blog post writing or photo and video editing or emailing happen while he's asleep, and times when Angel and I sit down to watch a movie at home have become rare indeed! Cyrus mainly hangs out in our main room of our home, and our computers are kept in the office, which means that we have to be more intentional with our use of computer time instead of casually turning them on whenever (this is easier for me than for Angel, haha!).

What have the results been?

Well, he's a not-quite six month old baby. I don't think there are any results at this point, but I know I sure appreciate our playtimes and watching Angel and him play. I like the family dynamic we have going--because the option of laying baby in front of a video while we busy ourselves getting something done is not an option, we have to be more creative with how we accomplish tasks, and we use available family time intentionally. One interesting comment we received when he needed to get some physiotherapy at the hospital. We got out a toy for him to watch and reach out for during the session, because this boy loves his toys, and the therapist made the comment, "Actually, that's really good that he can be entertained by a toy! Most of the babies that come in here, the parents have to get out their phone and play a video in order to calm them down and entertain them."

What makes screen-free babyhood possible?

I will admit that we have some awesome factors that were in place long before he was born, which have helped us in choosing entertainments other than screens for our little guy.

- My family is totally on board, they understand my heart behind wanting to delay the introduction of screens as fun entertainment for the baby, and completely adhere to Cyrus's rules about screens--yes for Skype calls, no for anything else. If the family does want to watch a movie together (recently they watched The Hobbit trilogy over the course of a week), various people end up taking turns with Cyrus, taking him on a walk outside or reading to him in another room...or sometimes he naps and we all watch a show together for a bit (rare, but it has happened!).

- Angel and I don't have a TV set up in our home. When we do watch a show together, we watch it on the laptop. A small screen works good for the two of us. We haven't had a TV set up since we moved overseas, sort of by accident, but at this point, we're just used to it.

- I don't watch TV alone. I initially imagined that I might want to sign up for Netflix when he was born so I'd have something to watch during long nights of taking care of baby. But I never signed up for it, because I just don't naturally want to watch TV by myself. For me, it's a social activity, which means that my late-night nursing activities have been mostly reading or....semi-sleeping. ha!

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I'll write another update when we're approaching one year of Screen-Free babyhood and we'll see where we're at by then! I have some idea that when we do start incorporating videos or cartoons, I'd like to keep all of his video entertainment in Spanish since he has less exposure to Spanish in his everyday life, but we'll see if that works out. All of you experienced parents can go ahead and sigh and shake your head at the bright-eyed ideals of young parenting...but in the meantime, just let us young parents have our fun. Because it is so very much fun, isn't it? :)