Every Child Needs Yoto Player (Review)
What is Yoto Player
Did you listen to stories when growing up? I remember listening to stories and music from our turntable in my childhood. I absolutely loved it. I had to ask my parents to start it every time I wanted to listen to something while I was little, and then I would play nearby listening.
Yoto player is just like that turntable with all the improvements you could possibly want and many more features! It has cards with stories and music, radio, podcast and it’s very child-friendly, easy even for my three-year-old to start, stop, control volume or skip to the next track. My daughter received her Yoto player from Santa this year and has been in love with it ever since.
If you are convinced at the end of the reading, you need one for your child, there is a link with a 10% discount at the bottom of the post. You’ll also get 500 reward points using the link.
Why did we buy it
There were two reasons for us to buy the player. First, I noticed that my daughter loves music. She often came to me and asked “Mommy is it OK if I put music on?” and then after I agreed, she used her musical toys to put some tunes on and dance with them. Second, I loved that Yoto follows the Montessori idea of giving a child independence. It allows my daughter to decide what she wants to listen to and put it on all by herself whenever she wants.
I thought it would take some time for my daughter to fully understand how great the Yoto player is and to grow into it. I was wrong! She fell in love instantly. She was excited about the fact she can use it all by herself and she decides what we are going to listen to!
Why do we love it
Music and Radio
Now almost four months later, we have used the Yoto player every day. We listened to Christmas carols during Christmas singing along. We sang and danced nursery rhymes, and each family member has a favourite nursery rhyme in the set! We all love the Yoto radio tunes. My baby boy crawls closer, sits nearby, and looks at the pictures on the player while nursery rhymes are playing. He has clear favourites too amongst them! And he dances by rocking himself side to side!
Stories
For a long time, my daughter was so fond of nursery rhymes card that she didn’t want to try anything new. And then one day she was suddenly ready to explore. She picked a card with stories and listened to them. She skipped some after listening to them a little, she loved others and listened several times in a row to the same story. She came back to some she skipped earlier and listened to them too. And she started really enjoying stories. She sits on the sofa hugging her Yoto player and listening to the stories when she feels like having quiet time. She comes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner bringing her Yoto player and stories with her. She asks questions about the stories and wants to read the books for the stories we have. I love to see it all and I am so pleased we chose to buy Yoto.
Phonic Games
We also bought a set with Phonic games for my daughter. I thought it could be fun to explore the sounds world and learn a bit more about sounds and rhythm too. She is quite into some cards from the set at the moment. She loves guessing what a sound is. And she loves trying to repeat sounds with her body parts. There are more cards in the set to explore and I know she will come to them too. My baby boy loves observing his big sister play with the phonic cards. He is curious about different sounds and he finds it exciting when she makes sounds with her body.
Support for Other Languages
Yoto player allows recording your own cards too. My daughter is bi-lingual and I am looking forward to recording some Russian songs and stories for her. I know she will love them and I am excited to have such a possibility. I look for every opportunity to add the Russian language into the mix and Yoto gives me just that.
There are also some cards in-store in French. And we have a card with the first 100 words in 5 languages. It’s fun to listen to. It will be even more fun when we will travel again.
Podcast, Yoto Club, and More
There are more features in the Yoto player as well. It shows time and also suggests when is daytime and when is nighttime. This is configurable in the settings and can be adjusted for each family. It has a night light, but as my daughter already had her own we do not use that feature.
We played Yoto cards in the car from my phone. It took me a little bit of time to understand how to do it, but it was fantastic to have familiar music on the go for both my daughter and the baby boy.
There is a daily podcast for little ones too. I find the idea very exciting. It might be more captivating for slightly older children. I listened to it and I thought that my daughter will grow into it as she grows.
Also, there is the Yoto club where for a subscription fee you receive a pack of cards every month. We might join it later on once we enjoyed all the cards we have. It must be just as exciting as receiving a monthly magazine.
Choosing Yoto vs Competitors
When choosing Yoto we have looked at Tonies too. What swayed us towards Yoto:
The cost of cards is much less and so it looks more cost-efficient long term
We also thought Tonie’s figures would become toys and start getting lost and worn out. So we actually preferred to have cards instead with less temptation to use them as toys
We liked the selection of stories and music available in Yoto more
We liked that we could play the cards in the car from our phones
The radio and podcast are very exciting features only available in Yoto
Get Yours with Discount
Buy the Yoto player and to receive a 10% discount and 500 rewards to use in the card store.
[New link is coming soon]
Hope you and your little ones will enjoy it as much as we do!
