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We live in a crazy world.  Thousands of movies and video games are accessible by our smartphones.  They can be a lifesaver, but they are also quite addictive for our little ones.  Starting an episode on Netflix often means that you lose your phone for the 25 minutes (or more) of showtime.  Giving them a game to play can provide hours (for better or worse) of entertainment.  But what do you do when you only need a few of minutes of quiet at the store, on the phone, or driving from A to B?

YouTube to the Rescue!

If you subscribe to the right channels, you can have access to tons of videos often 5 minutes or less.  Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Find to your local zoo’s channel.  Some zoos have better videos than others, so find a good one.  If you can’t find one you love, use ours at ‘Oregon Zoo’!
2. Disneyland / Disney World videos.  Parades, fireworks, POV Rides, familiar characters, and songs… what’s not to love?! Our favorite channels are ‘Inside the Magic’ and ‘Mouse Steps’.
3. Funny Pets.  This one is a winner every time.  Search things like ‘funny cats/dogs’.  You’ll get TONS of results.
4. Subscribe to ‘Tasty’.  I don’t know what it is about these cooking gifs, they just suck you in!  Kids seem to love them as much as adults.
5. Subscribe to ‘How It’s Made’. If you find videos on things that interest your kids (airplanes, firetrucks, favorite foods, etc.) these do well.
6. Search for Nursery Rhymes.  There are TONS of options. My kids like ‘Little Baby Bum’. They aren’t MY favorite, as they can get pretty annoying, but kids sure love them.  I will admit that it’s super cute when they are singing them on their own later!

A Useful Tip:

Go to the Subscription page that has the videos you want to access.  Like this:

If you do this, the autoplay feature will only play videos from that page.  If you just search for a random video from the YouTube homepage and play it, the autoplay feature will TRY to play similar videos after the one you selected.  Autoplay can bird walk and end up somewhere you don’t want your children to be. Believe me, it’s not good.  I’ve searched for ‘Elsa Frozen’ thinking innocent Disney videos would autoplay… not necessarily so.

There you have it, Momma!

Now go make your next trip to the bank a tiny bit easier with your little ones!