There are many of us who still refuse to break ties with our cable company because of our kids. However, you don’t have to fear that your kids will cause an uproar if you kick your cable provider to the curb. There are many affordable choices available for them.
An added bonus is that by cutting cable TV, and using a few of the services below, I feel that my family watches television less. I am better able to control how much my little one is watching, and she doesn’t watch any commercials.
Here are some of the best cable TV alternatives that your kids will enjoy.
Amazon Prime – $99 a year
Amazon Prime is one of my favorite for kids. We have Amazon Prime because we do majority of our shopping through Amazon, so the two-day free shipping is wonderful. It has saved me during the holidays, and when I was running low on diapers or formula. The bonus of Amazon Prime is that they have a nice library of kid shows.
My toddler’s favorites are Daniel Tiger and Creative Galaxy. If you’ve never heard of Creative Galaxy, then I highly recommend checking it out. It is a toddler/preschool-aged show made by Amazon that features art. At two, my daughter has referenced her art as her “masterpiece” and mentioned she was doing pointillism while making several dots on the paper. It has really helped her expand her imagination play.
Amazon Prime also offers the option of choosing no-rush shipping when you purchase an item for the exchange of a $1 book/movie/music credit. This has helped us buy a lot of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Doc McStuffins episodes.
Netflix – $7.99 a month
The number one thing I love about Netflix for kids is that they have finally made it so that the kid’s account and adult account are separate and organized. When we first had Netflix, I hated that weird show listings would pop up next to my toddler’s favorite shows. It was also annoying to have to scroll through all of my toddler’s recently watched shows to get to my favorite shows.
Netflix has a wide selection of shows too. When my eldest daughter was just over a year, we relied on Netflix for Signing Times. This was the only thing she watched for about six months, and she knew around 100-150 signs. Her favorite on Netflix know are the LeapFrog shows.
YouTube – free
I hate to say it, but YouTube has saved many long car rides. We don’t use it too often, but when we do, we usually find free episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Doc McStuffins. Of course, these are from user uploads, which they uploaded against the copyright.
YouTube is also a great source for endless animal videos and read-along videos. To avoid the dangers of YouTube, just create a playlist of appropriate titles. I highly recommend supervising when your child watches YouTube. Just trying to look up horse videos brings up clips on horses mating — gross!
Hulu Plus – $7.99 a month
We have not used Hulu Plus for our daughter yet, but there are several different shows available. The first two seasons of Doc McStuffin is on there, along with The Wiggles and SpongeBob. The kid portion of Hulu is also ad-free, which is a huge plus.
This is just a small sampling of the TV alternatives that are available for kids. One of the reason that these options are my favorite is because they are very affordable. Not only will switching to one of these providers save you money, it will help you better monitor what your kids watch.
How do your kids watch their favorite shows?
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