Screens before bed: why to switch them off, what to replace them with

Authorities recommend at least one hour with no screens before bed: right before the night, a screen wakes a child up instead of soothing them. The good news is that the evening tablet is easy to swap for a calm moment, a story, a voice. It's often that one change that softens falling asleep the most.

Why cut screens before bed?

Because the last hour of the day sets up the night, and a screen works against it. Official guidance is clear on this specific point. The French national health insurance (Assurance Maladie) advises “turning off your mobile phone, computer and television one to two hours before going to bed”.

The reason comes down to the light and the stimulation a screen produces at the wrong moment. Santé publique France, the French public health agency, states it: “the blue light produced by screens delays sleep”. Naître et grandir, a Quebec website about child development, puts it another way: “the brightness of screens is thought to wake the brain up rather than prepare it for rest”. Just when you're looking for calm, a screen does the opposite.

How long before bed, and from what age?

The benchmark shared by authorities is at least one hour with no screens before bed. Santé publique France recommends planning for “at least one hour with no screens before going to bed”. For the youngest ones, Assurance Maladie adds another benchmark, plainly: “no screens before the age of 3”.

There's no need to make it a pitched battle. The idea isn't to demonise screens during the day, but to protect the evening window, the one that gently leads toward sleep.

What can replace the evening tablet?

This is where it all plays out: a screen that switches off leaves a gap, and that gap fills up very well. Here are a few gentle ideas for the last hour:

1. A story, read or listened to, both of you settled in.
2. A warm bath, the pyjamas, then the light lowered.
3. A quiet little game, a drawing, a cuddle and a kind word.
4. A nursery rhyme, a lullaby, or an audio story in a calm voice.
5. A moment talking about the day, lying together in the dim light.

The World Health Organization points the same way, valuing the screen-free activities that matter for a child, among them “reading, singing, storytelling”. A story that tells itself while you do the cuddle is the simplest version of the screen-free evening.

Is an audio story really “screen-free”?

Yes, and that's exactly the point in the evening. Sound doesn't emit the light that delays sleep, and it leaves the room in the dim. What works then is the voice. The pediatrician Marie-Josèphe Challamel notes it: “even if the content isn't grasped, the musicality of language is at work”. Your child doesn't need to understand everything. They need to hear a calm voice close by.

It's also a good relay on the evenings when you no longer have the energy to read. The story holds the thread while you stay there, for the cuddle and the kind word.

How to introduce the cut-off gently?

Giving warning helps enormously. Let your child know the screen is going to switch off, rather than stopping it all at once. Then move straight into the routine: the dim light, the story, the cuddle. Naître et grandir reminds us that “the hour before bedtime should unfold calmly”. Replacing the tablet with a gentle moment is exactly what that last hour is looking for.

A screen-free evening, in practice

The simplest approach is an evening that follows the same order every time. Here's an example, to adapt to your family:

1. At least an hour before bed, the screen goes off and the tablet leaves the bedroom. Assurance Maladie also advises keeping “phones, tablets, consoles and computers out of the child's bedroom”.
2. A short transition time: tidying away the toys together, getting tomorrow's clothes ready.
3. The bath or a wash, pyjamas, teeth.
4. The story, with the light lowered, read or listened to.
5. The cuddle, and a word about the best moment of the day.

Tidying away the toys, getting tomorrow's clothes ready, talking about the best moment of the day: Naître et grandir suggests exactly these gestures to move gently from the evening to bedtime. After that, keep a short routine that's the same every night. For the site, “a good bedtime routine is fairly short (15 to 20 minutes) and is the same from one day to the next”. And to avoid negotiating the end, let your child know, as it suggests, “when you start reading the last story”.