The best time to get an email address for your kid: when they're born

If you’re like a lot of parents, you may fall down the same trap. As your child gradually gets introduced to screens, just like they’re dependent on you for everything else, they start off with your logins. You set up the iPad or iPhone using your own Apple ID, and download a few games. You install YouTube Kids under your regular Google account. It works fine … for a while.

Then your kid gets older. Maybe they get their own device. Maybe you want better controls, different permissions, maybe fewer games, maybe more structure. And suddenly you’re in migration hell.

Game progress doesn’t transfer.
Saved worlds disappear.
Carefully curated YouTube Kids settings vanish.
That beloved Goat Game goat? Gone.

The root problem is simple but unintuitive: both Apple and Google require a unique email address for child accounts.

On Apple’s side, that means creating a child Apple ID inside Family Sharing, managed with Screen Time.

On Google’s side, it means a child Google account managed through Google Family Link.

You cannot properly set these up without a separate email address per child.

So what happens in practice is that many parents delay. They reuse their own logins because it feels easier, and because giving a baby an email address sounds ridiculous. Big Tech UX doesn’t help here. This requirement is buried, poorly explained, and only becomes obvious when it’s already painful.

Our advice is boring, unsexy, and extremely practical: create an email address for your child as soon as they’re born.

Not to give them access. Not to hand them a login. Just to reserve an identity that can grow with them.

Once you have that email:

• Set up Apple Family Sharing and create a child Apple ID early.
• Set up Google Family Link and use the child account for YouTube Kids from day one.
• Use those child accounts consistently, even if the device is shared at first.

You’ll barely notice the difference now. But years later, when your kid gets their “own” device, you’ll be very glad you did. Everything transfers cleanly. Progress stays intact. Settings carry over. Security can tighten without wiping their digital life.

And most importantly, your kid won’t have to say goodbye to a treasured Goat Game goat just because they grew up.

Sometimes the best parenting tech move is the one that feels unnecessary, right up until it isn’t.