Youtube to distract a toddler

April 29, 2018 11:26 AM

We are raising our 18 month old son to be as screen free as possible for now but there are times when we just need to distract him for a bit (like making dinner). Right now we put on Caspar Babypants music videos but they're a finite resource. Are there any other good suggestions along the same lines?
posted by Silentgoldfish to Media & Arts (24 answers total)

our son loves the twenty trucks youtube channel as it combines videos of all sorts of real trucks with synthpop songs. i find myself getting the songs stuck in my head too.

we noticed that in off road racing trucks the song uses female pronouns for truck in the second verse- a subtle thing that we appreciated. (and i just noticed the same in rock crawler)
posted by noloveforned at 11:35 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Bob the train on YouTube isn't awful - they mix in shapes, colors and letters with nursery rhymes and it held the attention of our kids when she was that age. Similarly, the Super Simple Songs channel
posted by chrisamiller at 11:36 AM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think “big block sing song ” is funny and cute. I think it’s a CBC show.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 11:39 AM on April 29, 2018

Along the lines of musicians we love doing things for children, our family has been singing Farmer Jason's songs for a dozen years now.
posted by peagood at 12:06 PM on April 29, 2018

My kids love the Barefoot Books videos.
posted by gatorae at 12:36 PM on April 29, 2018

We looooved Signing Time, and bonus: learned some ASL!
posted by lizifer at 12:38 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Parry Gripp comes to mind, e.g. Space Unicorn. I'm not positive the whole channel is appropriate for children, but sampling recent videos like Rat in a Dollhouse and Chicken Yeah!, there certainly seems to be plenty of catchy music for kids.
posted by Wobbuffet at 1:20 PM on April 29, 2018

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is an animated Mr. Rogers spin-off that teaches social-emotional skills with integrated little songs that you can sing at difficult moments to remind your kid of how Daniel would respond to feeling mad/needing to go potty/trying something new/etc. Each 25 minute episode is actually 2 12-minute stories about the same thing, so you don't have to commit to a whole half-hour of screen time if you don't want to. Some episodes are available on pbskids.org, but all 8 seasons are on Amazon Prime. Lots of other quality kids content there too!
posted by juliapangolin at 1:51 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

OSWALD
posted by clseace at 1:54 PM on April 29, 2018

They Might Be Giants kids videos
Get the PBS kids video app for easy access to stream all their stuff.

Also my kid really likes neo funk videos from Vulfpeck, YKMV
posted by SaltySalticid at 1:59 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Wiggles sold 23 million DVDs for a reason.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:15 PM on April 29, 2018

When I was small I was fascinated by older nature documentaries. Just footage of animals and fish wandering around (I guess avoid the really bitey ones) with a calm descriptive voiceover.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 2:24 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, videos of big construction equipment, old episodes of Sesame Street on youtube.
posted by theora55 at 3:01 PM on April 29, 2018

Definitely Daniel Tiger, can't recommend highly enough.

We do a lot of Blue Planet nature shows. Another one we like is Moving Art, which is tranquil instrumental music over nature scenes.
posted by vignettist at 5:13 PM on April 29, 2018

Daniel Tiger is great, though my toddler wants me to fast forward through the live action parts which is kind of annoying. My personal favorite is Puffin Rock, which is on Netflix. It’s very chill and soothing, it’s about a family of Puffins that live on an Island. It’s an Irish show so everyone has Irish accents which I also like.
posted by insectosaurus at 6:44 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Daniel Tiger and Pocoyo (on Netflix) are pretty innocuous when it comes to toddler TV watching. My kids also enjoyed instructional videos for big-construction-machine use.
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 6:58 PM on April 29, 2018

So much love for the absurd, clever and delightful storybots in our house.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 8:29 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks all for all the suggestions. I'm adding everything to our queue, so please consider every reply marked as "best answer!"

Except the Wiggles. This is a Wiggles free househould. If I hear Wake Up Jeff one more time bad things might happen.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 9:40 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

When I worked at Children's Hospital, baby Einstein style videos were excellent with this age group. Relaxing and pleasant, it seemed.


posted by slothhog at 10:31 PM on April 29, 2018

Can't you just loop the videos he already likes? Toddlers usually are into repetition. (I do realise that you might not be...)

Calm crafting videos like this one has been a hit in this household. Marble machines like this one have also been popular.
posted by Harald74 at 6:21 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

There is a Sesame-Street like show on Amazon prime called Elmo and Friends. It seems designed for a younger group than classic Sesame Street. Every episode is 6 minutes long and our little one loves it, but the theme song will drive you nuts.
posted by luckdragon at 9:38 AM on April 30, 2018

Kipper the Dog is a British cartoon series that is super mellow. I used to watch with my boys when they were younger on Amazon Prime. A great show for calming everybody down.
posted by LoveHam at 12:38 PM on April 30, 2018

Children at that age also love long videos of garbage trucks and trains on youtube. You can find videos of these types of things. It's great because they get to observe real life activities!
posted by Kestrelxo at 8:56 PM on April 30, 2018

We like PBS kids, and make sure to enable the Guided Access feature! (so your kid won't be able to change the volume, exit the app, or turn off your wifi)
posted by Hermes32 at 9:03 PM on April 30, 2018