Screen Time for Babies

What the guidance actually says

Two bodies publish clear positions for children under two, and they agree.

The World Health Organization's guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under five are the most quantified. For infants under 1 year: "screen time is not recommended". For 1-year-olds: "sedentary screen time... is not recommended". For 2-year-olds: "sedentary screen time should be no more than 1 hour".

The CDC repeats the same line in its parenting tips at every age from two months onwards: "Limit screen time (TV, tablets, phones, etc.) to video calling with loved ones. Screen time is not recommended for children younger than 2 years of age. Babies learn by talking, playing, and interacting with others."

Note the exception, because it is the one that survives in every version of this guidance: video calling with people who love your baby is not what anyone means by screen time.

Why, in one sentence

Because babies learn from people, and screens are not people.

The American Academy of Pediatrics puts the developmental point plainly in its explanation of its digital media policy: "Infants under 18 months learn best from real-world interactions. Heavy solo screen use can affect their developing language and social skills, for example."

The mechanism is displacement rather than damage from the pixels. An hour spent watching is an hour not spent in the back-and-forth that builds language — the exchange the CDC describes when it tells parents to "act excited, smile, and talk to him when he makes sounds. This teaches him to take turns 'talking' back and forth in conversation."

The part about your screen, not theirs

The CDC's tip for two-month-olds names something the guidance for babies usually skips: "Being responsive to your baby helps him learn and grow. Limiting your screen time when you are with your baby helps you be responsive."

That is the more realistic target in most households. A baby with no screen of their own, being fed by someone scrolling, is in exactly the situation the guidance is trying to prevent. This is not a reason for guilt — parents need their phones, and a feed at 4am is not a teaching moment. But if you are going to change one thing, changing this one probably does more than banning a cartoon.

Mealtimes specifically

The NHS makes the point in its weaning advice: "Keep distractions to a minimum during mealtimes and avoid sitting your baby in front of the television, phone or tablet." Learning to eat involves noticing textures, noticing fullness and copying the people around the table. A screen removes all three.

What the newer AAP framing adds

The AAP's current media policy statement, "Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents", published in 2026, groups children into early childhood (0 to 5), school age (6 to 12) and teenagers, and offers families a framework it calls the 5 Cs of media use: the individual child, the content, calm or self-regulation, what other activities media crowds out, and communication.

For a baby, the "crowds out" question is the one that does the work. Time is finite in the first year, and almost anything else — floor play, being talked to, being carried around a supermarket and having things named — is a better use of it than a screen. The AAP also recommends avoiding screens in the hour before bed, which matters more than usual in a house already negotiating sleep.

What is normal, without the moralising

Almost every baby in a modern home encounters screens. A television on in the background, a sibling's programme, a phone held up to show grandparents, a video watched on a train because the alternative was worse. None of that is a failure, and none of it is what the research on displacement is about.

What the guidance is actually asking is narrower than it sounds: do not give a baby their own screen habit, and do not let a screen take the place of the interaction they learn from. Those are achievable in an ordinary week. Zero exposure in a household with older children is not, and pretending otherwise just adds guilt to a year that has enough.

WHO's guidance also frames the alternative rather than only the prohibition. For infants under one it recommends "at least 30 minutes in prone position (tummy time) spread throughout the day while awake", and that babies should "not be restrained for more than 1 hour at a time" in prams, high chairs or carriers. For children aged 1 to 2, it recommends "at least 180 minutes in a variety of types of physical activities" spread across the day. Sleep gets a number too: 14 to 17 hours for babies aged 0 to 3 months, 12 to 16 hours for 4 to 11 months, and 11 to 14 hours for 1 to 2-year-olds.

What actually helps

• Keep video calls, drop the rest. It is the exception both bodies allow, and it is genuinely interactive.
• Watch together when you do watch. A screen with a narrating adult beside it is a different object from a screen alone.
• Protect two moments: mealtimes and the hour before bed.
• Turn off background television when nobody is watching it. It competes directly with the speech your baby is trying to pick out.
• Put your own phone down for chunks of the day rather than trying to abolish it. Bounded is achievable; total is not.

When to speak to a health visitor or doctor

Screen use itself is rarely the reason to book an appointment. Development is. Raise it at the nine-to-twelve-month review, or contact your health visitor sooner, if your baby is not turning to your voice, not babbling by around nine months, not responding to their name, or has lost a skill they previously had. Those are worth checking regardless of what is or is not on in the living room.