On 27 March 2026, the UK Government released important new guidance about screen time for children under five. Its aim is to support healthy screen habits for young children. That’s incredibly important during the early years, with 90% of children’s brain growth happening before they’re five. Today’s article explores the topic, presents the new advice, and clarifies why it is being introduced at this time. So, let’s take a look now at our guide to the New Screen Time Guidelines for Under-fives.
“A large amount of screen time is linked with negative effects on children’s health and development. It can affect social, emotional, language and brain development, sleep, eyesight and healthy weight.” — beststartinlife.gov.uk
The New Advice is Evidence-Based
Importantly, the new guidance is evidence-based, having its roots in research and recommendations provided by ‘EYSTAG’, the Early Years Screen Time Advisory Group. The group, co-chaired jointly by the Children’s Commissioner and former Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Education, was commissioned in early 2026 to make recommendations in relation to screen use by children under five. They did so, having undertaken a thorough review of the scientific evidence and expert advice available, along with input from parents, children, and other stakeholders. Findings from the 50-page EYSTAG report made recommendations for both the government and parents, and formed the basis of the government’s new guidance released this month.
“Screen use for the under-fives should always be understood within the wider context of their overall learning and development experience, complementing, rather than replacing, the vital role of face-to-face interaction, play, and exploration.” — EYSTAG report
Key Recommendations from the New Screen Time Guidance for Under-5s
The government’s new screen time guidance for children under five, released in late March 2026, includes the following key recommendations:
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- Parents and carers should limit the total screen time of young children where possible.
- Screen time for children under the age of 2 should be avoided completely, except where it is a shared family activity* that fosters interactions, conversations, and closer bonds.
- Screen time for children aged between 2 and 5 should be limited to a maximum of 1 hour per day — ideally less.
* Examples provided for ‘shared family activities’ include video calls with family or friends and perusing family photos together.
“Whilst high-quality digital content can support early learning, it cannot substitute for the social, emotional, and physical experiences that come from real-world engagement.” — EYSTAG report
Content Types Suitable for Under-5s
The new government guidance also includes some specific recommendations regarding the type of content that’s most suitable for young children. They suggest that content for under-fives should:
- Have a slow pace, with content that’s predictable;
- Be safe in nature (parental controls will help);
- Avoid social media completely;
- Avoid access to AI tools, AI-enabled devices and chat apps, chatbots, smart speakers, and interactive robots.
With regard to the slower pace suggestion, fewer scene changes, simple stories, and slow speaking are best, they say. Dialogue and characters’ emotions should be clear enough for little ones to understand.
“Together, slow pacing and repetition help to build understanding in younger viewers.” — EYSTAG report
Additional Recommendations for Families
The new government guidance includes some additional, common-sense recommendations for parents and carers:
- They suggest leading by example, because children often copy behaviours of adults. So, mindfulness around time spent on phones while around children is paramount.
- Avoiding lengthy periods spent on phones and screens will also mean that parents and carers are, rightly, able to be present and attentive towards children. That’s important, particularly when they’re very young and require support, security, good role models, and all the benefits of shared family moments.
- Clear rules and boundaries should be set around screen use for under-fives.
- Rather than spending significant time around screens, young children should have ample high-quality time available for more social interactions and play activities.
- There should be areas of the home, and times of the day, that are completely screen-free — bedrooms and meal times, for example.
- Likewise, it’s important for screens to be ‘off’ in the background, otherwise they will distract children from high-quality time with family and more beneficial activities spent in the ‘real’ world.
“Who uses screens with children, and how they use them, matters. Responsive interaction between parents and children when using screens can prevent harms and promote development for young children” — Recommendation from the EYSTAG report
Learn More
We hope you found our synopsis of the new guidance for screen use for under-fives interesting and useful. You can find out more, including advice relating to children with SEND, by visiting the full government guidance here.
Related: Addictive Social Media AlgorithmsIn related news this month, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google both guilty¹ of causing harm via intentionally built addictive social media platforms according to The Observer. The article goes on to say that a New Mexico jury also recently concluded that Meta’s platforms endangered children, exposing them to sexual material and predators. In light of such findings, the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has stated that the government plans to ban the use of ‘addictive algorithms’ in social media apps. This goes hand in hand with the recent decision to launch a 3-month consultation for a possible social media ban for children under 16. Such a ban was introduced in Australia in December 2025. |
Little Acorns: Your Hindley Green Nursery
High-Quality Weekday Childcare Near Wigan
Little Acorns Nursery is located in Hindley Green, near Wigan, and also represents a convenient childcare choice for those living nearby in Bolton, Ince-in-Makerfield, Platt Bridge, Westhoughton, Atherton, Leigh, Bickershaw, and Tyldesley. The nursery supports funded childcare hours for eligible families, including those with children as young as just 9 months and as old as 4 years. It provides a wonderful home-from-home setting for little ones.
Get in touch if you’d like to explore a possible childcare place for your child at this wonderful Wigan nursery. We’re available to answer any questions, tell you more, and show you around:
1. Meta owns Instagram, Facebook & WhatsApp. Google owns YouTube. At the time of writing, both are considering a legal appeal against the guilty verdict.
Following May’s 
Children will need some leaves for these ‘leaf art’ activities. We suggest they collect a wide selection of shapes, sizes, and varieties, so they have the flexibility to undertake any of the leaf art activities below. Our 
Whether fresh, dried, or pressed (see below), leaf collages can be used to make wonderful pictures and designs. With a little imagination, leaves can suddenly resemble little trees and landscapes, or be combined into formations that depict a flower head or a graphical design. The accompanying images show a couple of examples to get children’s creative juices flowing.
One of the most straightforward creative activities with leaves is simply to paint and decorate them with coloured paints. Doing so can create highly attractive groups of leaves that are fun and cheerful to look at. Experiment with flat colours or more intricate decorations such as polka dots, stripes, stars, or zigzags. Glue the finished leaves to paper or card once dry to use them as part of a leaf collage (see above).
Leaves and small flowers can be dried, flattened, and kept longer by pressing them. Once pressed and dried, they’re like little works of art in themselves and are quite delightful. They can be kept as bookmarks or keepsakes, or used as art and collage components for some of the other leaf activities outlined today.
Leaf rubbing is a simple yet effective art activity involving leaves. First, simply place a leaf under a sheet of fairly thin paper. Holding the paper still with one hand, children should use their writing hand to rub a crayon, pastel, charcoal stick, or soft pencil lead over the area where the leaf sits, scribbling from left to right in closely aligned lines. A ‘picture’ of the underlying leaf will gradually appear!
Leaf printing is super-easy and fun for little ones. Find a suitable leaf and, using a broad brush or — better still — paint roller, paint the most textured side of a leaf with a thin layer of paint, ensuring it covers the whole side of the leaf. Then, while the paint is still wet, place the painted side carefully over a sheet of blank paper. Without moving its position, press all parts of the leaf down so the paint makes contact with the underlying paper. Another way to accomplish this is to use a clean roller to ‘roll’ over the leaf so it connects the paint with the paper. Carefully remove the leaf and — hey presto — you should have an image of the leaf structure and texture right there on the paper. Try different leaves, various colours, and overlapping experiments to accomplish different outcomes.
Instead of painting or using leaves directly, children can also try to depict them with their own paintings and drawings. These are a good way to encourage children to focus on getting the shape and details correct, fine-tune hand-eye coordination, and bolster technical mark-making skills. And, because children are free to paint or draw however they like, they can let their imaginations run riot and perhaps invent their own leaf shapes, leaf patterns, and natural worlds on paper.
Children can use some of the creative skills they’ve learnt in the activities above to make greeting cards that feature their leaf art. For example, they can forage for heart-shaped leaves and paint them cerise pink to use as part of a simple Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day greeting card. More general greeting cards for other special occasions can also be accomplished using leaves and dried flowers — for example, arranged to depict a leaf or dried ‘bouquet’ on a card sent for a birthday.
Calling all children and their families — people of all ages are needed this July and August for the world’s biggest wildlife survey — the Big Butterfly Count! So, whether you’re a child or an adult, you can play your part. This is a great activity for under-fives too as it’ll be fun, educational, and incredibly worthwhile. What’s more, they’ll become little citizen scientists by taking part. The nature-based activity takes as little as just 15 minutes and costs nothing at all. Children don’t need any special abilities other than a little patience and good observation — both great skills for them to practise. Let’s take a look and see what the Big Butterfly Count is all about and how children can take part this year.
The Big Butterfly Count is a nature survey that anyone can take part in during July and August each year. For 2025, it takes place from Friday the 18th of July to Sunday the 10th of August, a period in which temperatures are usually warm and butterfly populations are likely to peak. In essence, all that is required is for butterflies to be counted during a 15-minute period (more detail follows later in this guide). The survey event is open to everyone and, indeed, the more people who take part, the better. So, if you, your child, your family, or your friends want to play a part in protecting butterflies and nature as a whole, please get involved.
The populations of butterflies can be used as a barometer for the health of pollinator numbers and nature as a whole. With some butterfly species already disappearing from our gardens and countryside and others nearing extinction, there is no time to lose. Only by identifying the issues can we, as a nation, begin to reverse some of the decline. By reversing it, it will be good for butterflies, good for other pollinators like bees, good for nature as a whole — and good for humans too! After all, without pollinators, the supply of foods like cereals, fruit, vegetables and legumes would start to run out. So, taking part in the Big Butterfly Count is extremely worthwhile and we urge little ones and their families to take part.
First, ensure you have downloaded and printed out 
Choose a spot for your butterfly survey. It should be somewhere outside where butterflies are most likely to be seen. Sunny, sheltered spots are good, particularly where a variety of different sizes and types of flowers or blossoms are in bloom.
Sometime in the period from Friday the 18th of July to Sunday the 10th of August, you/your child should spend 15 minutes making a note of how many of each type of butterfly you can see. Concentrate only on the species included in the event organiser’s reference from Step 1. You must count how many of each single species you see at the same time. So, if you see three Painted Ladies at the same time, then record that as 3. However, if you see one Painted Lady on three separate occasions during the 15 minutes, that would only count as 1 — otherwise, it could simply be the same butterfly revisiting.
Did You Know?
Nature and outdoor play feature significantly in children’s time at 
With World Bee Day arriving on the 20th of May and National Children’s Gardening Week arriving on the 24th, it’s an excellent time for a flower-growing activity for children — including under-fives. More specifically, the growing of bee-friendly flowers — from seeds — will be an excellent way to celebrate World Bee Day and support these adorable little creatures. Bees, butterflies, and other pollinators are incredibly important for the world, being largely responsible for pollinating the crops, including nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables, that we rely on for food. Yet they are under threat with numbers dwindling severely in recent years. Without bees and other pollinators, the world’s animals, plants, trees, and flowers would be in real danger. Today’s bee-friendly flower-growing activity is therefore an incredibly worthwhile one for children to get involved in. It’s fun, highly educational for little ones, and will help to make the world a better place! Little ones, let’s get growing!
Unless seeds are available from friends and family or harvests from previous years, parents of under-fives will need to source them. However, that’s easy and can be incredibly inexpensive. Most supermarkets sell seed packets and, if not, there is a whole range of online stores to choose from (
If children are going with our recommended second option, they will first need to read packets to ensure their timing is right. For seed trays, they can use inexpensive, commercially available seed trays or use smaller options like flower pots. Another free alternative is to use repurposed margarine tubs, yoghurt pots, or similar. Whichever option they choose will need drainage holes added underneath by supervising parents plus a drip tray of some kind. Whether that’s a commercial one or something as simple as a saucer is up to families.
Once the soil is layered into the seed trays or pots, to a level an inch or so below the top, children can indent the soil/compost for the seeds to go into. Seeds can be manually spaced out into these indents so that, once they grow, the individual plants will be easily separated. We suggest scattering a shallow layer of sieved soil or compost over the seeds once placed into the indents and given a sprinkling of water.
Children should continue to water the seedlings regularly, when needed, and may also have to thin out any ‘clumps’ or plants that are too close together, otherwise, several plants may get tangled and have to compete with one another unnecessarily.
Once flowers appear, children can expect pollinators like honey bees, bumblebees, butterflies, and hoverflies to appear. It’s going to be magical for children when that day first arrives! Bees and the other pollinators truly are delightful and adorable. Children should look but not touch*, after all, bees have important work to do!
This activity will raise awareness of bees and pollinators in children of all ages. It’s not only a wonderful way to introduce children to these adorable creatures, but also a great opportunity to raise awareness of the plight bees and pollinators are facing. They are under severe pressure from habitat loss, global warming, the use of harmful pesticides/weedkillers, pollution, invasive predators, and many other threats that have made their populations plummet in recent years.
World Book Day is a special charitable event, celebrated globally, that encourages children of all ages to discover the joy of reading. Why? Because reading has the power to substantially improve children’s lives. Schools, nurseries, and libraries across the nation make the day extra special for children through storytelling sessions, fancy dress, and book-related activities.
Find time for your little one to read.
Dress up as a favourite character! There’s no need for elaborate costumes; a simple hat, crown, or themed outfit inspired by a beloved book character can bring your child’s favourite stories to life.
Since September 2024, the number of free childcare hours available for eligible children aged 9 months to 2 years (inclusive) is 570 per year. This is usually taken as 15 hours per week over 38 term-time weeks of the year*. In further good news, the allocation is set to double to 1140 hours per year from September 2025, thereby aligning with what eligible 3 and 4-year-olds are already entitled to (see below).
Meanwhile, a total of 1140 hours of free childcare is currently available for eligible children aged 3 and 4 each year. This is usually taken as 30 hours per week over 38 term-time weeks of the year*.
Draw up a short list of possible settings for your child, having first whittled down the choices by 
If your child already has a friend or neighbour of a similar age who will also attend your chosen nursery, it can be very useful. Both children will then have a friendly face to play with from Day 1. If not, it should be easy enough to ask around to find out about other local children who will start at the nursery when your child does. Arranging play dates for them in the weeks running up to the start date will help each child familiarise themselves with one another, so they each have a friend or two at the nursery right from the start. It’s a great way of settling them in.
Aside from the initial guided tours undertaken, we schedule 2 formal settling-in visits for children once a place has been offered. These hour-long settling-in sessions usually occur in the week before children are due to start at the nursery formally. They are both free of charge. Here’s how they are approached:
Reassuring your child will also help them settle into nursery – so communication is key. This is true both before they start and once they attend, particularly at the beginning. Before starting, it’s important to ensure they know that changes will soon happen, what to expect when the time comes, and that it’s going to be a big adventure with lots of fun! Encourage questions and answer them sensitively. They also need to be reassured that you will always be there, behind the scenes, looking out for their best interests. And, of course, it’s crucial for them to know you’ll be there to pick them up at home time (don’t be late!).
As we said previously in our 
Encourage children by celebrating their successes at the nursery. Whether it’s the successful completion of their first day, the first tear-free day, the making of a new friend or any other accomplishment, ensure you congratulate your child. This will give them a sense of achievement, reassure them that they’re doing well, and encourage them to keep attending and building on their progress.
With children sometimes taking as many as 2, 3, or even 4 weeks to fully settle into a new nursery, it’s also important for staff to closely monitor and nurture them. That’s indeed exactly what we do at Little Acorns Nursery in Hindley Green. We ensure the setting is a home-from-home environment for children as much as possible. Children will feel valued, loved, listened to, and well cared for at Little Acorns. We’ll reassure them when they need it, communicate well with parents/carers, discuss any challenges and work to address them speedily and in the most effective ways. We have children’s best interests at heart, so parents can rest assured that their little ones are kept safe, happy and well and, even if not immediately, they’ll grow to love being at the nursery. A couple of recent testimonials prove the point beautifully (hover over them to pause):
