Our 6 and 9 year old each have there own. They shared about 2 years ago for about 2 months - when we quickly realized each having their own was worthwhile. Both use theirs every day for both music and audiobooks at least for bed time each night, but also generally a lot more. By far one of our best purchases. I like that one has a regular and one has a mini and that really they still are pretty much completely interchangeable with each other. So they can switch anytime it makes sense (ex. The mini tends to leave the house, regardless of who is using it)

Definitely recommend make your own cards. There is so much content available and makes fights over regular cards moot. I also think the club is worth it for the digital content and putting that on your make your own cards.

We even did some traveling over the summer where the yoto saved our sanity as well. We were in the mountains and there was no radio or cell service, so we used it to listen to music in the car.

Oh and personally, I would also recommend the protective sleeves on them - ours get carried around everywhere.

What is yoto or yoto minis? Any link? How much is it? That sounds a great holiday idea?

Anonymous wrote:None of the books we’ve ordered cards for are abridged. You can look at the audio length for each card on the info page. Another hack is that you can get the make you own card packs and get audio books from the library to put on them. Because it’s cloud based there is no limit on the length of files you put on a card, and you can reuse them. We’ve also done this with music we own, etc.

+1 we have quite a few classic children’s novels (like Peter Pan, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Beezus & Ramona series, and so on) and none are abridged. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Yoto card that specifies that the story is abridged? My kids love them.

If you have make your own cards you can also put content from any card in your yoto library on it, so if the kids both want one card but in their own rooms, you can tap a make your own card to your phone and poof- you have a second copy.

Our kids use their yotos every day and sharing wouldn’t work for us since they have separate rooms

None of the books we’ve ordered cards for are abridged. You can look at the audio length for each card on the info page. Another hack is that you can get the make you own card packs and get audio books from the library to put on them. Because it’s cloud based there is no limit on the length of files you put on a card, and you can reuse them. We’ve also done this with music we own, etc.

OP. Thanks! Kids are 9, 7, and 4. They’re all strong readers and happily read themselves to sleep so I’m imagining this being used when they’re building, coloring, etc just like I listen to audiobooks during chores. But maybe the oldest wants to be able to listen to music by herself? I just keep thinking I could buy an awful lot of cards for the price of two more players!

We do a lot of music as a family from my phone over airplay speakers or in the car. The kids used to do audiobooks from the library on a boom box but it wasn’t very portable.

We love our Yoto!!

Mine share with no problem BUT they share a room. I think you'd need one for each kid's room.

We haven't done any audio books, we focus on music.

Two hot tips: 1) Get them cards that YOU like and you might be pleasantly surprised what they latch on to (my kid's really into Spice Girls and Elton John now and I'm here for it!)

2) On the same note, do not buy ones that are annoying. I refuse to buy anything kidz bop-esque. Real music only. Save yourself! We have plenty of soundtracks and Raffi.

3) Make your own! We use a YouTube scraper (I know, I know) and have made a ton of cards for my kids.

We started with purchasing one for our oldest, and then thought the youngest could share but quickly determined that they need their own. We have the yoto minis. My youngest, who wakes up earliest, pulls it out in the morning to quietly listen on head phones, and they both bring it with them on all our travels -- it's especially great on road trips. Each kid listens to their own stories while mom and dad listen to our podcasts in the front of the car. We mostly use the refillable cards and we load them up with podcast episodes -- the only rub with that is that you need to have an internet connection so on roadtrips this means we have to set up one of our phones as a hot spot.

1. If you have multiple kids, do you find multiple Yotos worthwhile or does making them share work fine? (I’m considering Christmas presents.)

2. How are the audiobooks of classic children’s literature? How abridged are they?