Singapore screen time guidance: device-free play for preschoolers

Rain on the window, a print activity page on the table, a phone within reach. Here is the short answer: current Singapore screen time guidance sets one limit per age band plus a fixed set of conditions, and the same window can be filled with play that needs no screen at all. Under 18 months, no screen use other than interactive video chatting, and no background TV. From 18 months to 6 years, less than one hour of screen use a day outside school. ^[1]

The Health Promotion Board's Childhood Health Behaviours Checklist, dated February 2025, is the version you can act on directly: it turns the same rules into ticks and pairs each one with physical activity and outdoor play items. Below is what each document actually says, followed by optional, low-cost swaps to try in the same block of time. ^[2]

What the guidance says, band by band

For 18 months to 6 years, the conditions matter as much as the hour. HealthHub's Parent Hub page, citing the Ministry of Health's 2025 Guidance on Screen Use in Children, says not to use screens just to occupy or distract your child, not to use screens during meals and one hour before bedtime, to choose educational and age-appropriate content, and to watch content together and discuss it with your child. HealthHub's guidance written with the Child Development Unit at NUH calls this active screen time: a child thinking about and engaging with what is on screen. ^{[1] [3]}

HealthHub defines screen time as time on computers, tablets, smartphones, TV, video or hand-held games, and passive viewing as screen viewing without adult co-viewing and interaction. It also notes that screen time before bedtime is associated with shorter duration and poorer quality sleep in infants and toddlers. Framing varies slightly between HealthHub pages: one article citing the CHILD programme says children under 18 months should have no passive viewing and those between 18 and 36 months no more than an hour a day, while the MOH 2025 limits quoted above count total screen use. ^{[1] [4]}

The checklist you can tick this weekend

The Health Promotion Board's Childhood Health Behaviours Checklist (February 2025) is completed by parents and is tied to childhood developmental screening visits. At 24–36 months, and again at 4–6 years, the screen items are identical: total screen use outside school less than one hour daily, only age-appropriate content, an adult discussing what is watched, screen-free mealtimes, no screen time one hour before bed, and no background screen use. The 24–36 months version pairs them with at least 180 minutes of physical activity of any intensity spread throughout the day, plus daily outdoor active play. ^[2]

A worked example, invented here for illustration rather than drawn from any source: a parent of a four-year-old shapes Saturday into a paper activity after breakfast with no device in the room, a playground visit, and one co-viewed 20-minute slot kept well under the checklist's one-hour daily total. The 4–6 years version carries the same 180-minute spread-through-the-day activity target and daily outdoor active play item as the 24–36 months version, and adds at least 60 minutes at moderate to vigorous intensity. The tick boxes also ask what is true most of the time, not what happened on one Saturday. ^[2]

Filling the same window without a screen

Indoors, HealthHub's own suggestions need little more than paper and floor space: colouring vegetables, a DIY playhouse, a matching-fruits activity, mirror play and independent play, plus play dough shaped into alphabets and fruit and vegetable shapes, and paper airplanes to see how far they fly. Its activity page also suggests walking backwards, on tip-toes or in long strides. When a baby fusses for a device, HealthHub suggests offering a favourite toy, pointing to a moving object to practise grasping, or moving to another room or outside for a quick walk. These are optional ideas from the cited pages, not tested routines. ^{[1] [5]}

For printable starting points, HealthHub's Parent Hub directs parents to free screen-free activity sheets, while The Straits Times' September 2026 children's page, published in Sunday Life as part of its series on managing screen time, asked children to navigate a maze of the moon's eight phases and count dogs in a photograph from a recent pet-friendly event. Outdoors, HealthHub says pre-schoolers should spend at least three hours a day on a variety of physical activities spread through the day, including outdoor play, and notes that studies have shown time spent outside can help prevent or delay myopia; on free play, its advice is that active play need not be overly structured. ^{[6] [7] [5] [8] [3]}

When someone else is looking after your child

HealthHub advises checking with an infant care centre about its screen policy for children below 18 months and asking whether screen time is controlled, and telling a babysitter your family's rules so they can follow them. Parent Hub's material makes the same point about sharing rules and tips with other caregivers, and HealthHub's MindSG guidance asks that all caregivers consistently enforce the same rules on device use. ^{[1] [6] [9]}

Outings have their own swap: HealthHub suggests packing a "fun bag" of small toys, healthy snacks, stickers and books so a restless child has something besides your phone, and it recommends screen-free zones at home such as the dining table and the child's bedroom, with devices put away at mealtimes and at least an hour before bed. HealthHub also notes that children copy the adults around them, so your own device use is part of the rule rather than separate from it. ^[1]

The short answer

Current Singapore screen time guidance is one limit per age band plus a fixed set of conditions: under 18 months, no screen use other than interactive video chatting and no background TV; 18 months to 6 years, less than an hour a day outside school, with no screens during meals or in the hour before bedtime, age-appropriate content, and watching together and discussing. ^[1]

The HPB childhood health behaviours checklist is the document to keep, because each screen item sits beside a physical activity and daily outdoor play item covering the same hours. Print a free screen-free activity sheet from HealthHub's Parent Hub, move that hour outdoors, and let every caregiver hold the same rule. This guide covers only the two age bands above; none of the sources used here sets a school-age limit. ^{[2] [6]}

Sources

EduNanny Editorial · AI-assisted research and writing, reviewed by our automated editorial team. Sources checked 2026-10-05. Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration.