When I was pregnant with my second child and struggling with morning sickness, I relied heavily on screentime to keep my 2 year old daughter occupied. Fast forward to after the birth of my second child, and I was really struggling with naptime. My 3 year old had stopped napping, and my new son had significant difficulty with sleep and feeding due to airway and oral issues. So again, I relied on screentime. We also moved across the country when my son was 6 months old, and we were living with my mother-in-law with most of our belongings packed away in storage for 5 months. Multiple large transitions were a struggle for all of us, and so I did what I needed to do. When my son needed to be put down for a nap, I turned on the tv and my daughter sat and watched quietly for 1-2 hours.
I have no shame about this. I did the best I could with the resources I had at the time. Some life phases are just harder than others, ya know?
But, it absolutely impacted my daughter. As a highly sensitive little person, she has always been very impacted by screentime. I noticed lots of behavioral changes after a tv session, and it was always a battle to turn the tv off. Additionally, she would ask to watch a show all day long, and every time I had to say “no”, there was a huge emotional release.
When we finally got settled into our new home, I knew I had to make a change.
I began weaning her off of the tv slowly, and I was intentional about what kinds of shows she was watching. I chose slower-paced show that were less stimulating than a lot of popular kids’ shows, like If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. I decreased the time she was allowed to watch over the course of a week. She went from watching 1.5 hours during naptime- to only watching one show.
After that week, we went on a screen detox. I prepared my daughter in advance by discussing the plan many times in the week leading up to the screen detox. Then, the day finally came and we were not turning on the tv.
Was it difficult? Yes, absolutely! For about a week or two, my daughter definitely went through some withdrawals and repeatedly asked if she could watch a show, followed by a big emotional release episode. After a week or two, it got so much easier, and she didn’t ask for a show at all.
So how did I manage naptime for my littlest without my older child being occupied by a show? I began implementing a screen-free quiet time, and I probably couldn’t have done it as easily without the help of our Yoto Player.
Image source: us.yotoplay.com
At the same time we started the screen detox, I also got a Yoto Player for my daughter for her 4th birthday, and we basically substituted the Yoto for the show. She has always loved listening to me read her stories, so I was sure this would be a great idea for her, and it was! Every day, when it was nap time, my daughter would pick out which story she wanted to listen to in her room while I put my littlest down for a nap. It worked flawlessly.
The Yoto Player is a screen-free audio player device for kids. You purchase cards to go with it, and these cards are what the audio is stored on. The child just inserts the card into player, and voila! The audio plays. The device is super simple for children to learn how to use quickly on their own. We’ve had ours for two years, and I just got a mini Yoto Player for our son, and we all absolutely love it.
2 years later, at 6 years old, my daughter still listens to her Yoto Player during quiet time. Oftentimes, she’ll look at picture books, color, or play quietly with legos while she’s listening to a story. I love that the Yoto is screen free and portable. It’s amazing for traveling, and you can also plug headphones into it. You can control the device from your phone via an app, and you can turn off the Wifi and just listen to cards that have been downloaded to the player without the Yoto being connected to internet.
Some of our favorite cards are: Winnie the Pooh, The Secret Garden, and Frog and Toad. Yoto also has “Make your own” cards that you can purchase and upload your own music or audio stories. We love these, too! It’s been great for homeschooling because I can purchase a reading (or find it for free on Librivox), and upload it right to the card. I’ve also put music on the Make your own cards. We even have a card of myself reading some of the kids’ favorite picture books to them so they can play it whenever they want, even if I’m not available to read.
Pro tip- We have both the full sized Yoto Player as well as the mini, and I’d highly recommend the Mini for anyone. It’s cheaper, plus it does almost everything the full sized player does aside from acting as a nightlight. If you don’t care about the nightlight, the mini is the way to go!
Use my code AFF-TAYLORKULIK5 to save 5% on players.
I hope your family enjoys the Yoto Player as much as mine has! It’s been such a blessing to us.
Hi! We have had a very similar experience with yoto! We ditched screentime almost completely because we added ours to our home. I’d love to hear more about how you utilize the make your own cards with librivox and purchased readings! Also do you download podcasts too? Thanks!!!
That’s amazing to hear! Yoto has a tutorial on their site for MYO cards. It looks very intimidating, but it is actually quite easy once you just do it. Maybe one day, I’ll make a tutorial. Basically, we download audio stories, and then upload them to a playlist on our Yoto account, then link it to a MYO card. We also do this with music files, and yes podcast episodes. You can link entire podcasts to a card, but I’ve never done that because we usually use ours without being connected to wifi. Instead, I use the app “podcast saver” to download specific podcast episodes, and upload those directly to the card. Hope that helps!