Surviving toddler time warps and the baby g watch revelation

Yesterday at 4:15 PM, I watched a fellow parent achieve the impossible by the swings in Victoria Park. His seven-year-old daughter was mid-tantrum, fully committed to avoiding the inevitable march home for dinner. Then, a tiny beep emanated from her wrist. She sighed heavily, dropped her stick, and simply walked over to her dad. No bribes were offered. No desperate threats involving the confiscation of iPad privileges. Just quiet compliance. I looked down at my two-year-old twin girls, who were currently trying to eat a discarded ice cream cone they'd found in a bush, and asked him what dark magic he'd employed. He just tapped the chunky resin watch on her wrist and smirked.

Before that moment, I genuinely believed a baby g watch was some sort of ridiculous 90s nostalgia trend, or worse, actual miniature jewellery meant for infants. I assumed my mate had completely lost the plot and spent eighty quid on a timepiece for someone who still spells her own name backwards. I was very wrong.

The great timekeeping delusion

When you first bring them home from the hospital, time doesn't actually exist in any meaningful way. Your life is just an endless, blurry loop of nappies, sterilising bottles, and quietly crying into cold cups of tea. I remember wrapping the girls in our Organic Cotton Baby Blanket with Polar Bear Print back when they were small enough to stay where I put them. It's a genuinely brilliant bit of fabric, mostly because it survived an infinite number of trips through the washing machine after being completely ruined by reflux, and the organic cotton didn't make them sweat like standard polyester nonsense. But back then, I didn't need a watch to tell me what time it was. The polar bears were my only friends at 3am, and the baby's screaming was my alarm clock.

But as they get older, you suddenly have to be places. Nursery drop-offs. Playdates you agreed to when you were too tired to say no. Doctor's appointments where the NHS receptionist glares at you for being four minutes late. You think you'll just use your smartphone to check the time like a normal adult. This is a massive mistake.

The second you pull your phone out of your pocket to check if it's time for lunch, your kid spots the glowing rectangle of doom. Suddenly, a peaceful walk turns into a hostage negotiation because they want to watch a highly stimulating cartoon about a singing tractor. You've ruined the vibe just by checking the hour. You need a device that tells the time and does absolutely nothing else, which is exactly why handing over time management to the kid themselves is apparently the greatest parenting hack on earth.

What our GP mumbled about screens

I dragged the twins in for their two-year check-up recently, mostly to make sure the amount of dirt they ingest daily isn't technically lethal. Our GP, an incredibly exhausted woman who always looks like she desperately needs a holiday, brought up the dreaded topic of screen time. She didn't quote any exact scientific papers, mostly because she was busy dodging a flying wooden block, but she muttered something about how giving kids smart devices is destroying their attention spans.

From what I could gather through the haze of a mild headache, the medical consensus is basically just a collective plea for parents to stop sticking iPads in kids' faces to keep them quiet. My rough understanding is that if you give a kid a smart watch, you're basically strapping a distraction machine to their body. But if you give them an analogue or basic digital baby g, they get the autonomy of knowing when it's time to go home without the temptation to play mindless games. It sort of blew my mind, honestly.

Pressing the tiny button of doom

So, thoroughly convinced by the park dad, I decided to buy one for my seven-year-old niece's birthday. I figured I'd test the waters before my twins are old enough to actually read numbers. But I've to warn you, setting the time on these things is an exercise in pure, unadulterated psychological torture.

You can't just turn a dial. No, that would make too much sense. You have to locate a recessed button labelled 'Adjust', which apparently requires the precise fingernail length of a classical guitarist to actually depress. You hold this button until the tiny digital display begins to flash menacingly at you. Then, you've to use a completely counter-intuitive combination of the 'Forward' and 'Reverse' buttons to cycle through world time zones until you find London.

If you accidentally press the 'Mode' button during this delicate operation, you're suddenly looking at a stopwatch, the flashing stops, and you've to start the entire miserable process all over again. I spent forty-five minutes sitting on my kitchen floor, sweating profusely, trying to get the thing to recognize British Summer Time while the twins threw dry pasta at my head. It's a miracle I didn't throw it out the window. If the instruction manual wasn't printed in a font size designed for ants, it might have been slightly easier.

It's water-resistant to 100 metres though, which is nice if your kid ever accidentally falls into a deep ocean trench.

Stuff that genuinely survives childhood

The main reason I'm even thinking about a baby g for the future is because I'm so incredibly tired of buying things that break. The twins destroy everything. I'm actively trying to stop filling my house with cheap plastic rubbish that inevitably ends up in a landfill three weeks after I buy it.

It's the same logic I've started applying to their clothes and gear. For instance, I bought the Kianao Fishs Play Gym Set with Wooden Ring Toys thinking it would create a serene, minimalist haven in our living room. It's perfectly fine, beautifully made even, but my feral two-year-olds mostly just chewed on the wooden rings for a bit before trying to use the frame as a step ladder to reach the cat food. It's a nice bit of wood, but perhaps better suited for actual newborns who stay exactly where you leave them.

On the other hand, investing in things that last makes sense. You can browse through a sustainable organic baby clothes collection and find pieces that won't dissolve in the wash. I bought the Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit for them recently. They look absolutely adorable in it for the grand total of four minutes before they manage to smear mashed banana into the ruffles. But the fabric is surprisingly tough, holds its shape, and survives my panicked scrubbing in the kitchen sink. That's all I really care about now: does it look decent, and will it survive the absolute chaos of my children?

Handing over the power

What I realised watching that dad in the park is that we spend so much time nagging our kids. "Five more minutes. Time to go. Put your shoes on. We're late." It's exhausting for me, and they just tune it out as background noise.

Putting a chunky, indestructible digital watch on their wrist when they're old enough completely shifts the dynamic. You tell them the alarm is set for 5:00 PM, and when it beeps, they've to come inside. You remove yourself as the bad guy. The watch becomes the authority figure. It's a genuinely brilliant bit of psychological trickery.

I've still got a few years before my girls are old enough to understand what an alarm is. Right now, their concept of time is strictly limited to "I want snacks" and "I refuse to sleep." But when they hit six or seven, I'm absolutely buying them both one. I might even buy one for myself right now, just so I don't have to look at my phone when I'm trying to figure out how many hours are left until bedtime.

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Messy questions I've been asked about this

Is a baby g watch seriously for babies?
No, and I feel like an absolute idiot for thinking it was. It's basically a shrunken down Casio G-Shock designed for women and older kids. If you put one on a baby, they'll just chew on the resin strap until they choke, so definitely wait until they're in primary school. My mate reckons age seven is the sweet spot.

How long does the battery last before it dies?
Supposedly around two to three years, depending on how obsessively your kid pushes the backlight button under their duvet. The annoying part is that you can't really change the battery yourself with a butter knife. If you crack the back open, you ruin the waterproof seal, and suddenly it won't survive the inevitable trip through the washing machine.

Why shouldn't I just buy them a cheap smart watch?
Because you'll never know a moment's peace again. The second they've a screen on their wrist, they're playing games or trying to message you from the living room. Plus, cheap smart watches break the second they get dropped on a hard floor. A basic digital watch tells the time and survives being run over by a scooter.

Can they wear it in the bath?
Yeah, it's resistant to 100 metres. Unless your kid is doing advanced scuba training in the bathtub, the watch is going to be absolutely fine covered in bubbles and lukewarm water. It's practically immune to toddler destruction.

How do you stop them from constantly setting the alarm off?
You don't. You just accept that for the first two weeks of owning it, your house will randomly beep at 6:15 AM because they wanted to test the buttons. Eventually, the novelty wears off and they just use it to know when Peppa Pig is on.