The honest answer, grounded in current UK guidance and developmental science, for parents navigating a newborn and a toddler at the same time.
The UK Chief Medical Officers advise that screen time for children aged two to four should be limited and always balanced with physically active, socially rich play, though they stop short of prescribing a single daily minute count. In practical terms, the World Health Organization recommends no more than one hour of sedentary screen time per day for three and four-year-olds, and none at all for those under two, except for video calls with family. If you have just brought a newborn home and your toddler's tablet use has quietly doubled, you are not failing those guidelines so much as surviving one of the most demanding transitions in family life. A few weeks of imperfect routines will not erase the foundations you have already laid.
The more useful question is not whether any screen time is acceptable, but what replaces it when you can realistically pull the screen away. Research by Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff consistently shows that the quality of a child's play environment matters far more than any single episode of over-exposure to screens. Open-ended, hands-on play with objects that respond to a child's own imagination builds the language, executive function and social cognition that screens largely cannot. The goal in these early weeks is not perfection; it is direction: gently nudging your toddler towards toys and activities that work even when your attention is elsewhere.
What the WHO actually says
The World Health Organization's 2019 guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under five recommend that toddlers aged three to four spend no more than one hour in sedentary screen time per day, and that less is better. For children under two, screen time other than video-chatting is not recommended at all. These figures form the international basis for UK clinical advice.
Bringing a second child home reorganises every assumption you had about your day. Feeds, nappy changes, winding and settling a newborn can occupy two to four hours at a stretch, and a toddler who previously had your full attention now encounters a parent who is physically present but cognitively and emotionally at capacity. The tablet or television becomes an instant, reliable solution, and the relief it offers is entirely understandable. Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik has written warmly about the difference between parenting as a controlled project and parenting as a process of being present within uncertainty: the newborn period with a toddler in the house is the latter at its most concentrated.
What matters is that you recognise the pattern before it becomes a default. Most families find that screen use spikes dramatically in weeks one to four, then becomes easier to moderate once feeding is more predictable and the toddler adjusts to the new household rhythm. Give yourself that runway without judgement.
The concern is not the screen itself so much as what it displaces. Studies by Christakis and, more recently, by Madigan and colleagues have found associations between high screen exposure in the under-fives and slower language acquisition, reduced attention span and fewer opportunities for the kind of unstructured, imaginative play that Panksepp identified as fundamental to healthy emotional development. The displacement effect is key: every hour in front of a screen is an hour not spent in conversation, physical exploration or the rich back-and-forth of joint play that Hart and Risley showed to be so powerfully predictive of later vocabulary and literacy. None of this means that a fortnight of extra television causes lasting harm, but it does clarify what you are aiming to restore once the initial haze lifts.
The displacement principle
Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff describe play as "the work of childhood," noting that open-ended, object-based play activates language, creativity and problem-solving in ways that passive screen consumption does not replicate. Even twenty minutes of independent play with well-chosen toys can deliver developmental benefit that a screen of equivalent length cannot.
The secret to screen-free success in the newborn period is not willpower but environment. If your toddler has access to toys that reward sustained, independent engagement, the pull of the tablet weakens naturally. The research tradition associated with Montessori, and later extended by Trawick-Smith's TIMPANI studies, consistently identifies a handful of toy characteristics that support long independent play: open-endedness, manipulability, graduated challenge and the absence of a single correct answer. Wooden puzzles, stacking and sorting sets, simple construction materials and classic tabletop games all score highly on these criteria.
A toddler settled at a tray of wooden shapes or a well-chosen puzzle can occupy themselves productively for fifteen to thirty minutes, which is often precisely the window a parent needs for a feed or a settling session with a newborn. The investment in the right materials pays dividends that a streaming subscription simply cannot match.
Browse Jaques London's educational toys, chosen for open-ended independent playVygotsky's concept of scaffolding offers a genuinely practical tool here. Rather than presenting your toddler with unlimited free time and hoping they fill it well, you set up an activity before you begin a feed, naming it, demonstrating it briefly and handing it over. "Here are the puzzle pieces. Can you find where the red one goes?" This small act of initiation substantially extends the time a toddler will persist independently. Over days and weeks, the activity slots become anchors in the day: one before the morning feed, one after lunch, one in the late afternoon when everyone is fractious. The toddler begins to anticipate them, which reduces the whining and the reach for the screen.
Diamond's work on executive function development reminds us that toddlers are still building the cognitive capacity to self-regulate and sustain attention. Expecting them to do so without any environmental support is unrealistic. The right toy in the right moment is not a distraction from parenting; it is a form of it.
Gray and Brown have both written about the importance of giving children time to play without adult direction. When a toddler learns to initiate and sustain their own play, they are developing a skill that will serve them throughout childhood: the capacity to be productively alone. This is not abandonment; it is the quiet gift of self-sufficiency. A toddler who can lose themselves in building a wooden tower or sorting coloured rings for twenty minutes is also learning patience, persistence and spatial reasoning, none of which requires a parent to be watching.
For the newborn, the benefit is equally real. A settled, quietly occupied older sibling creates the calm atmosphere that Kuhl and Meltzoff's research associates with optimal early learning conditions. The household's emotional temperature drops, and both children benefit.
Ginsburg, writing on the importance of play for the American Academy of Pediatrics, has been careful to note that parental wellbeing is inseparable from child wellbeing. A parent who is rested, calm and moderately functional is a better developmental resource than one who has enforced every guideline at the cost of their own sanity. The AAP itself has softened its language around screen time in recent years, shifting from prohibition to context. Co-viewing, video calls with grandparents and short, age-appropriate programmes watched alongside a caregiver carry far less risk than unsupervised, open-ended tablet use. If screens are happening in your house right now, make them as interactive and shared as your circumstances allow, and keep investing in the physical play environment that will gradually take their place.
A note from 229 years of play
Jaques of London has been crafting games and playthings since 1795, longer than any other games maker in the world. The company that gave the world croquet in 1851 and the Staunton chess set in 1849 has always understood that the best toys are those that ask something of the child: curiosity, patience, a willingness to try again. That philosophy is more relevant now than ever.
No. The research, including longitudinal work reviewed by Madigan and colleagues, consistently shows that it is sustained, high-dose screen exposure over months and years that correlates with developmental outcomes, not a concentrated spike during a family transition. Your child's brain remains highly plastic, and the moment you begin reintroducing rich, hands-on play, the developmental clock starts ticking in the right direction again. Be gentle with yourself, set up one good activity today, and build from there.
Trawick-Smith's TIMPANI research found that two-year-olds engaged with high-quality, open-ended toys sustain independent play for an average of fifteen to twenty minutes, sometimes longer with familiar materials. The key variables are the toy itself (open-ended beats single-purpose), the setup (a designated play space helps) and initiation (a brief adult introduction extends persistence markedly). Start with a realistic expectation of ten minutes and celebrate every extra moment as a win.
Toys that offer multiple correct answers outperform those with a single solution every time. Wooden puzzles with chunky, satisfying pieces, shape sorters, simple stacking sets, peg boards and classic construction toys all score highly in independent-play research. Jaques London's wooden toy collection and educational toy range are designed with exactly this kind of open-ended engagement in mind: durable enough to withstand the enthusiasm of a two-year-old and varied enough to sustain interest across weeks of repeated use.
Guilt is rarely a useful developmental tool, for parents or children. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the WHO and the UK Chief Medical Officers all frame their guidelines as aspirational targets for typical family life, not as emergency thresholds that trigger harm the moment they are exceeded. What the evidence actually calls for is a thoughtful overall pattern: rich play, physical activity, language-filled interaction and adequate sleep. If those things are broadly present across your child's week, a period of elevated screen use during a significant family transition is unlikely to leave a lasting mark. Direct that energy towards building a better play environment, and the screen time will find its own natural level.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.