Here at Rising Motherhood, I don’t ever proclaim to be perfect or even-toned all the time, but I do practice self-awareness. If I know something if doing to set me off again and again, how can I learn skills to come back to calm? how can I prioritize some things that bring my lava down? or how can I make changes to my environment to reduce the stressors?

I teach the same thing in my course for parents and for kids: how can we bring our lava down and show up as a more conscious version of ourselves?

Obviously, opportunities to practice this come up every day.

As someone committed to "conscious parenting," I place great importance on recognizing my triggers and actively seeking ways to diminish their impact. Take bedtime, for instance—it's a prime opportunity for me to identify what sets off my stress levels and explore methods to mitigate those triggers.

Enter the Yoto Player. I got my daughter a YOTO player for her birthday, and it’s our #1 used toy right now. All of my kids have books they enjoy and the cards keep coming. My favorite is that each night to calm down and go to sleep, my three-year-old picks a story that her grandparents recorded for her. She gets to have grandma or grandpa putting her to bed, and they don’t even have to be here.

**affiliate links are used throughout this post

What is a YOTO player ? A YOTO card?

Yoto cards are physical cards used with the Yoto Player, a screen-free audio device for children. These cards can be customized to play various audio content such as stories, music, and educational content. I’ve been on a kick lately of making my own Yoto Cards and below I’ve shared the HOW-TO’s.

Step-by-step guide on how to make your own Yoto card from Conscious Parenting Coach, Lauren Pace.

Get Your Yoto Player Supplies Together:

• You'll need a YOTO Player and Make Your Own (MYO) Yoto Cards

• And of course, grab the audio files you want to put on the card. Stories, songs, whatever your kiddo likes. (We will talk about specifics on this below).

• Optional: Download the Yoto app on your phone or tablet. It's handy for managing your Yoto library, but it's not a must-have. You can do this part from your computer pretty easily.

FIND YOUR AUDIO FOR YOUR YOTO PLAYER

• Music: CD’s that you own are a great place to start. You an also purchase songs and upload them to YOTO cards.

• Audiobooks: Download your Audible selections (ie. Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh) or Libro.fm

• Make Your Own Audio: Simply record using the Voice Memo app, or the YOTO player app on your phone then upload it straight to a playlist. You can have family members send you a voice memo audio recording, save it to files and upload it to your YOTO app. This is what we started with and it’s so fun!

Tweak Your Tunes:

• Make sure your audio files are in the right format. MP3, AAC, WAV, you know the drill.

• If you need to, trim or edit the audio to make it just right (Audacity is a free app to do this)

• Audio Books: Audible users can use an app called OpenAudible it’s $20 for life, and you drag your Audible download into OpenAudible. Then click on it and convert it to MP3. Once it is converted you can right click on it again and click “Split Selected Books“ and it will split all the chapters for you.

Add it to Your Card

• Open up the Yoto app or https://us.yotoplay.com/make-your-own and click on “create playlist“

• Add your Titles and upload your Audio Files to the Playlist

• Link your card and follow instructions on the screen

GIVE IT A LISTEN

• Once your card is ready, stick it in the Yoto Player and see if it plays your content.

• Make sure everything sounds good and there are no hiccups.

A LITTLE EXTRA

• Add a cover picture

• Add pixels for each chapter that will show up on the YOTO player screen

  • There are pixels on the YOTO player website or

  • You can head on over to https://www.yotoicons.com and collect all the pixels people generously share

MORE EXTRA

• Create cover art for your card, use this free template I created to create the correct size YOTO card cover

• One way to create cover art (the one I use) is to upload that file to canva, and drag it all the way across an 8.5x11 size template. Then create your art in the spaces that are shown. After you create the correct size backgrounds, you can delete the template from behind

• Print the card covers on matte vinyl sticker paper, then cover it with self-adhesive laminating sheets (this makes it waterproof) and then cut them out.

• Options: Use a paper cutter and you can get a stamp cut out for rounded corners or use a silhouette machine, or leave them square.

Sort It Out:

• If you want to start a collection of MYO Yoto Cards, I’d suggest getting a storage binder for all the cards. We got this one here and it’s great.

I’m new to YOTO and I’m absolutely obsessed. We are going to just create more and more and learn more and more. I hope you learned something here and if you have any more questions let me know.