I’m not exaggerating at all when I tell you that this week I have discovered my new, absolute favourite resource, The Yoto Player and I’m also not exaggerating when I tell you, that for us, this has completely transformed the children’s bedtimes by not only making them quicker (the kids fall asleep much easier) but also a lot less stressful! Sounds like the holy grail of resources doesn’t it?!

Please note we were gifted a Yoto Player, all opinions and words are own.

So what exactly is it?

The Yoto Player is a basically a gorgeous, little audio player for all ages of children that reads bedtime stories to your kids! You can buy ‘books’ on little Yoto cards, such as The Gruffalo, Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile etc. , then all your child does it pop the card into the top of the player and off it goes reading the story! It has the most beautiful sound effects too in between each ‘page turn’ of the book and when something happens in the story, making the experience of listening to bedtime stories even more magical! Find it on Amazon here.

What did we like about it?

• VAST amount of stories available for all ages– What’s amazing it how many stories are available for the Yoto Player. Theres everything from Roald Dahl, Enid Blighton to the Wimpy Kid! Honestly, there is such a vast amount of stories available and they keep adding more!

• Incredibly Easy to use– The best thing about this, as a child of the 80s myself is its a bit like giving your kids a tape player…but one that’s amazing quality and looks really nice! It felt really nostalgic watching them pop the cards into the top of the Yoto player and enjoy the stories. And what’s particularly wonderful is how ridiculously simple it is to use, you literally just put the card in the top. This means kids can use it themselves very easily.

• Compliments bedtime stories– Whilst I wouldn’t encourage using it to replace bedtime stories by families, its a wonderful addition to it. We use it after we’ve read a book, meaning we can leave them to finish their bedtimes themselves easier. It’s so relaxing to listen to, with its gentle sound effects and beautiful recordings of people reading the books out loud.

• Helps children go to sleep independently – Going to sleep independently is a hugely difficult issue for so many families and I genuinely believe the Yoto Player can help some what to relax children before they fall asleep and help them to feel happy and content in their bedrooms by themselves as they fall asleep. Like many parents I’ve spent countless hours sat on the floor in the children’s bedrooms daring not to move in case I woke them when they were drifting off to sleep, so anything that can help with this is a winner in my book!!

• Record your own stories onto the cards– Now this is where it gets really clever. Not only can you buy physical cards with popular stories on them (they would be make fab birthday presents!) and also download stories from your (free) Yoto app on your phone…but if you’ve got a favourite book that’s not on there, or your child would just prefer your voice to read…you can really easily record yourself reading the book and pop it onto one of the cards using the app. We tried it and managed to do it really easily! You can also record back over them (again…a bit like tapes!) with new stories if you change your choice of favourite book!

• Quality of the Sound- The quality of the sound is fantastic, its lovely to listen to and really clear and calming. We were really impressed.

• Yoto Radio!– Now, I wasn’t expecting this to be something to ‘write home about’ but the Yoto player has it’s own ‘Yoto Radio Channel’ and it’s actually wonderful! All kid friendly, but not lots of children’s nursery rhymes, instead it has lots of upbeat classic pop songs- perfect for dancing round the living room to.

• Night-light/Sleep Training – Lastly, another really clever and useful feature is the night light/sleep training mode. You simply put the Yoto Player upside down and it becomes a lovely nightlight! And you can set the times for it to light up to help your children know when its morning time and when they can get up. Absolute genius.

• Educational! – And if you’re still not convinced (I imagine you probably are!) its also educational! They even have PHONICS cards to help your children learn phonics as part of the Letters and Sounds programme!

Buy your Yoto player on Amazon here.