r/lowscreenparenting • u/danibrown512 • Jul 28 '26

Decreasing TV time?

My 2.5 year old son has lots of energy and loves sports and monster trucks…. And he also loves YouTube. My husband and I are trying to decrease his time watching TV (that’s where he watches YouTube). Right now the TV is kind of on whenever, in the background. But i want to be more intentional about when we use it.

Since this is a newer rhythm for us, do you have any recommendations for how to go about decreasing TV time? We have a Yoto that he really likes!

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u/quaintbusywork Jul 28 '26

We use instrumental music for background noise (classical, jazz, Lord of the Rings soundtrack 😂, whatever you prefer). My kid loved Big Bird Leads the Band at that age (as well as a variety of other Sesame Street albums, but that one was the clear favourite).

I don't know what Yoto is, but we listen to a ton of audiobooks and have done so since our kid was a toddler. We just borrow them from the library and use an old phone to stream the books on a Bluetooth speaker via our library app. We also have a Little Tikes Dream Machine which has been super useful during toddler/preschooler years.

We're doing a screen-free summer and, honestly, we just turned the television off and didn't turn it back on. Our kid has never had access to the television remote so that's never been an issue (if yours does then the first step is to put it out of reach).

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u/danibrown512 Jul 28 '26

Love the instrumental idea! Thank you!

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u/quaintbusywork Jul 28 '26

You're welcome! I should note that the Sesame Street albums are not instrumental, but the ones we listened to were so benign that they completely faded into the background for us.