Screentime Boundaries for Moms
How to get off your phone and enjoy your kids
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The average daily screen usage for my generation is seven hours. SEVEN HOURS! Where are people finding this time?! As a stay-at-home-mom, I could easily slip into that territory. But that would mean missing a whole lot of my kids' lives.
Call me bad at multitasking, but I don’t know how to be present online and still fully present in my real life. Since becoming a mom in 2021, I’ve been looking for ways to reduce my screentime and put boundaries in place to spend less time on my phone. Of course, no journey is linear, but today I’ll share my current screentime habits and some of the experiments we’ve tried.
My goal here isn’t to make you feel guilty or put pressure on you, but rather to inspire you to take a hard look at your own screentime and find a peaceful way forward.
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The experiments we’ve tried
Typically, I recommend starting very small with lifestyle changes. These experiments have been very drastic changes for a short time, but don’t feel you need to be this drastic as you look to change your screentime habits. One small step for a short time will teach you more than sitting stuck and unsure how to start.
Cancelling our wifi
A few years ago, my husband and I decided on a whim to cancel our wifi. We knew we were going to be moving soon, so I told him “Let’s just spend the rest of our time here without internet and see how it goes!” I pitched it to him as an opportunity to save money, but really I just wanted a break from feeling so connected.
We no longer had Netflix to binge, so I got back at least 10 hours per week. If we wanted to watch a movie, we went to the library and borrowed a DVD! It was fun to narrow down our options and be more intentional about movie date nights.
I also got back hours in my day that I previously spent scrolling. With only a limited data plan on our phones, I had to be intentional about how I used my time online.
Overall, we loved the experiment. Even though we have internet again now, that brief stint without it helped to break down our social media addiction and impact how we treat our phones now.
Getting rid of our tv
We moved into a new place about 8 months ago, and I strongly requested waiting a while to put the TV up. We wanted to see how life would go without it, and honestly, we haven't missed it!
My oldest daughter (2 years old) asked a couple of times for her shows, but since we were in a new environment and there was no tv for her to point to, it wasn’t an issue.
My husband and I suddenly had the energy to be creative again. Now, if we want to spend time together in the evenings, we'll play cards or just sit and chat.
Of course, we always have the option to put on a show on our laptop or to pull a TV out. It's just a lot more work. I expected this would happen often, but we’ve only done it a couple of times in the last few months.
Of course, this could change in different seasons. The weather is getting colder here in Canada, so we may miss tv more when we spend more time inside. But so far, I have no desire to have it back!
Deleting Instagram
I’ve deactivated my Instagram account and removed social media apps from my phone. I’ve gone back and forth with deleting social media a few times, but I always came back to Instagram because I thought I needed Instagram to have a creative outlet online.
Now that I’ve gotten into blogging and started a YouTube channel, I no longer feel like I need Instagram as a creative outlet. It feels so much better for my brain when I'm consuming long-form content and when I'm creating long-form content instead of little snippets in reels and stories.
I am on YouTube and Pinterest, but I don’t view those as social media. Instead of consuming little snippets and feeling like I’ve wasted time, YouTube and Pinterest improve my real life by helping me learn and pushing me to create instead of only consuming.
My Current Screentime Habits
Television/Streaming
Since we don’t have our TV set up right now, I don’t spend any time watching movies or shows. Once every few months, my husband and I watch a show or movie as a date night.
Social Media
I don’t currently create or consume content on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok.
I create and consume on YouTube and Pinterest. I try to limit my time on YouTube to 45 minutes per day and spend it consuming long-form content instead of shorts. I have an app timer on my phone that helps me with this. I don’t have any boundaries set up around Pinterest because I usually open the app for a specific purpose to look up a recipe or helpful articles.
Other Boundaries
I charge my phone in the kitchen at night instead of sleeping next to it every night. This helps me to start my days without scrolling.
During the day, I typically keep my phone on the kitchen counter so I can focus on my kids instead of constantly trying to look things up or communicate with people. I take time for tasks like ordering groceries and online shopping once the kids are in bed/doing quiet time, but I want them to see me reading in my spare time more than they see me on my phone.
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How to Reduce Your Screentime in Five Steps
1. Prepare to Start Small
I recommend starting with small consistent changes instead of taking a drastic approach. Drastic methods may help us learn about ourselves and our habits, but often it is the small subtle changes that impact our lives over time.
If you are currently spending 7 hours a day on your phone, you don't need to try to drop that number down to one hour immediately. But even if we try to shave off 30 minutes per day, that time adds up! 30 minutes a day ends up being an extra 3.5 hours a week that you can spend doing something different or truly resting.
View each change you make as an experiment designed to help you collect data.
2. Choose a specific time of day to change
Maybe you’re tired of getting on your phone first thing in the morning or you want to be present with your kids when they wake up from their naps. List out a few times you would like to change and choose just ONE to start with.
3. Choose what you want to do instead
I don't think it's fair to try to take something out of our lives without replacing it with something different. Have you ever tried to quit a specific food? If I'm getting of a certain food, I need a replacement. Otherwise, I'm just going to be unhappy and frustrated and hungry! The same is true in our schedule. It will be easier to resist the temptation of a time suck with something else to focus on.
Do you want to read more? Play playdough with your kids? Pick up a creative hobby? There’s no wrong answer. Choose something you’re excited to do!
4. Set yourself up for success
Set up your environment. Maybe you need to create a physical barrier, like moving your TV out of the living room or putting app timers on your phone so that it locks you out of Instagram at that specific time.
If you want to change your morning habits, sleep with your phone in the kitchen. It's not fair to rely on your willpower alone. Change your environment to suit the habits you want.
5. Reevaluate and keep trying
Have grace for yourself! Like I said, this is an experiment. You don't have to expect a total overnight transformation. Make a change, see how it goes, and use that information to start again.
How can I promote my blog without social media?
If you are looking to create online or you’re hoping to make money online and you’ve felt obligated to use social media, I have great news! You don’t need to be present on Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook, and you don’t need to spend 7 hours on your phone each day.
Like I said, I kept reactivating my Instagram account because I thought it was the only way to have a creative outlet online and potentially make money. But I'm so thankful I've learned the truth!
Instead of spending an hour a day making and posting a 15-second reel to Instagram, you can spend one hour a week writing a blog post that can serve people for years to come.
On Instagram, I couldn’t escape the cycle of creating. I spend hours and hours each day creating and engaging and trying to build relationships only for it all to disappear after 24 hours. Now, I invest my time in my blog instead. This post will take me an hour to create and an hour to promote on Pinterest, and it has the potential to serve people for years to come.
You can become a successful blogger without Instagram. In fact, once you delete that app, you may just find the time you need to work on your blog.
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Final Thoughts
I hope this post encouraged you to keep experimenting as you decide how screens fit into your life. If you’re looking to reduce screen time, I’d love to hear from you in the comments! What is your “why?” What do you want to spend more of your time doing instead of being on screens?
