To set screen time limits on your kid's iPhone, open Settings → Screen Time and use three tools together: App Limits for a daily cap (on all apps or on specific ones), Downtime for a bedtime schedule, and Always Allowed for apps that should never lock, like Phone and Messages. Then set a Screen Time passcode so your child can't change the limits. It's free and built into every iPhone. Here's how to set each one up, plus where a dedicated app makes the routine easier.
Before you begin
Manage from your phone or theirs
- From your iPhone with Family Sharing: add your child in Settings → [your name] → Family. Then open Settings → Screen Time on your phone and tap your child's name. You can change limits and approve requests for more time without picking up their phone.
- On your child's iPhone: open Settings → Screen Time and turn it on, choosing that it's your child's phone if asked.
Set the Screen Time passcode
In Screen Time, tap Use Screen Time Passcode (or Lock Screen Time Settings). Choose a code that's different from any phone unlock code and never enter it in front of your child. This is what stops them simply switching the limits off.
Step 1: Set a daily limit for the whole phone
If you want a single cap, such as two hours a day across everything:
- Go to Settings → Screen Time (tap your child's name if on your phone).
- Tap App Limits → Add Limit.
- Select All Apps & Categories.
- Tap Next and choose the daily time.
- Tap Customize Days if weekends or certain weekdays need more or less.
- Make sure Block at End of Limit is on, then tap Add.
Once the time is used up, apps lock except those in Always Allowed.
Step 2: Add limits for specific apps
You'll often want tighter limits on the apps that eat the most time, such as games, YouTube or social media.
- In App Limits, tap Add Limit again.
- Pick a category (Games, Social, Entertainment) or individual apps.
- Set a time, for example 30 minutes for games on school days.
- Switch on Block at End of Limit.
To block an app instead of limiting it, set the limit to one minute. Our guide on how to block apps on your child's iPhone covers that, and blocking social media goes through Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.
Step 3: Set a bedtime with Downtime
Downtime locks the phone during set hours except for Always Allowed apps. It's the easiest way to protect sleep.
- In Screen Time, tap Downtime.
- Turn on Scheduled.
- Choose Every Day or Customize Days (later on Fridays and Saturdays, for example).
- Set the start and end times.
- Switch on Block at Downtime so your child can't ignore it.
More detail is in our bedtime and Downtime guide.
Step 4: Choose what's always allowed
Tap Always Allowed in Screen Time. Phone stays available so your child can always call. Add anything else that should work at any time, such as Messages, Maps, a music app for falling asleep, or a learning app. You can also use Communication Limits to control who your child can contact during Downtime.
Step 5: Stop limits being worked around
- In Content & Privacy Restrictions → App Store Purchases, set Installing Apps and Deleting Apps to Don't Allow, so new apps can't dodge your limits.
- In App Store, Media, Web & Games → Web Content, choose Limit Adult Websites to filter Safari and add any sites you want blocked.
Picking a starting limit
There's no official number that fits every child, so treat any limit as a starting point. A few practical ideas:
- Protect the basics first. Sleep, homework, meals and time outside matter more than the exact minutes. Downtime and app limits around those times do most of the work.
- Separate school days and weekends. Customize Days lets you be stricter Monday to Friday and more relaxed at weekends.
- Limit by app, not just in total. An hour of reading or drawing apps isn't the same as an hour of short-video feeds.
- Review after two weeks. Look at the Screen Time report together and adjust. Kids are more likely to stick to limits they helped shape.
If this is your child's first phone, see first phone rules for kids.
Where Screen Time limits get hard to manage
Screen Time is free and capable, but day-to-day there are a few friction points:
- No easy "school hours" mode. You can set Downtime during the school day, but it's one schedule that you also need for bedtime.
- Requests for more time pile up. Approving them quickly can undo a limit without you noticing.
- Passcodes get discovered. One glimpse and every limit is open.
- Limits sometimes stop applying. If that happens, see Screen Time not working and how kids bypass Screen Time.
Easier limits with Skydo
Skydo is an iPhone parental-control app built on Apple's own Screen Time technology (Family Controls), so when time is up, apps genuinely don't open. iOS enforces it, not a VPN or a profile.
Limits and routines it covers
- Daily time limit and a separate bedtime.
- School Mode: apps are blocked during school hours except the ones you allow, and it runs automatically on school days. See blocking apps during school hours.
- Homework Mode: apps unlock for a set time once homework is done.
- Pause all apps for 30 minutes, for dinner or when it's time to go.
- Block apps or whole categories such as all social media, and block adult websites in Safari and search.
- Prevent installing or deleting apps, protected by a parent PIN and Face ID.
- Blocked-attempts count and a weekly report.
Change limits from your phone
Pair your phone with your child's once using an 8-character code, with no accounts. From your phone you can change bedtime, limits and school hours, or pause everything, and the change reaches your child's iPhone in seconds. Which apps are blocked is chosen on the child's phone. See control your child's iPhone from your phone.
What you need
Skydo must be installed and set up on your child's iPhone, running iOS 26.5 or later. It's a free download; turning protection on needs a Skydo Premium subscription, monthly or yearly. One subscription bought on your phone also unlocks your child's phone. No ads, no data selling.
Summary
- Set a Screen Time passcode, or manage through Family Sharing.
- Add a daily cap with All Apps & Categories.
- Add tighter limits on the biggest time-sinks.
- Use Downtime for bedtime and Always Allowed for essentials.
- Turn off app installs and filter the web.
- Review together every few weeks.
If you want school-day routines, homework rewards and changes from your own phone without juggling settings, Skydo handles that on top of the same Apple technology.