I honestly thought so too, but after a while of going to absolutely zero screen time she went from requiring constant entertaining to being able to play by herself for hours.

I 100% understand your sentiment though, I used to think no screentime would be playing parenting in HARD mode on, but I'm now convinced SOME screentime is playing parenting in ULTRA HARD mode. 

 Would you have been able to make the switch with a 3 year old? That’s how old my kid is. If I turn my back for two seconds without a screen to entertain him (assuming he even lets me) he’s 100% going to end up with a letter opener in his eye or something 

 yeah, we actually started when she was three.

She got actually got hooked when we caved and gave her a phone on a flight from Europe to Costa Rica.

Right after that it was all but impossible to take the phone away and we struggled for a long time (~1 year) to contain screentime. I think she was around 3.5 y when we decided we were going to go from 15 minutes a day to complete zero.

Like  @vrod said, it's rough at the beginning and you have to be super present to be with them, but also allow for boredom to come in and not fill the boredom with some exogenous stimuli. 

 aka have a spine when parenting. 

 this is 100% true! 

 Not a criticism, just a hopefully constructive idea:  what about inviting the kid to help with the chores?  I hear a lot about how helping grownups can be like play at young ages. It might slow things down at first as they learn, but the payoff could eventually be getting MORE stuff done and a kid who doesn’t hate chores. 

 And time connecting, of course 

 Oh for sure. Kid helps empty the dishwasher, unload the groceries etc. and the older he gets the more he can do (he’s only 3). But we don’t want him in proximity of knives or fire and I spend a solid 4 hours cooking per week… that’s the kind of stuff I need to invoke screen time for.