iPhone Screen Time and App limits

Hi

I use my Iphone 16, running iOS 18.6.2 to manage my daughter’s IPhone 14 plus,  running iOS 26.0.1

On purchasing the phone we set up app limits and daily downtime restrictions which have always worked seamlessly and done exactly what we needed them to do.  However about a month ago they simply stopped working properly.  Luckily not in the way that most people post about here, the limits don’t cancel or remove themselves, thankfully she isn’t left exposed to endless app time.

They do the opposite of that, so she’ll turn her phone on in the morning and within 1 or 2 minutes of being freed from downtime her apps will shut off.

I can then go and look in Screen Time/See All App Activity and it will clearly show that she has accessed it for a brief amount of time, seconds rather than minutes, and definitely not the hour that she is allowed to spend on it.

The only change from around the time that this started occurring is that she sought out the upgrade to iOS 26 because her friends told her to.  We weren’t aware of this at the time but identified subsequently that it might have been around the same time.

I’ve removed, reset and replaced all of the limits but the problem persists.  It really is a nuisance because the only work around is that she requests additional time but then we have to authorise an hour and that is a clock hour not an hour of use. So for apps she is in and out of during the day, for short periods of time, like Snapchat, we are constantly have to re-authorise more time.

Has anyone experienced this or have any idea what may have happened and what we can do. It really does negate all the reasons we choose to buy her an iPhone. We could have something much simpler with a family app in it instead, but this seemed like such an easy way for us both to help support her safety directly from our phones with needing any third party products.

Thanks for looking I hope for some wisdom for you folks