For parents
What can a child listen to at bedtime that is not a screen?
Audio stories, radio plays and story boxes all work at bedtime, and all of them beat a screen for the same two reasons: no light in the eyes, and no next episode queued up behind the one that just finished. The thing to check is whether it stops on its own.
A story that ends
The single most useful property of a bedtime story is that it finishes. Anything that automatically starts the next one turns the end of a story from a natural stopping point into a negotiation, every night, forever.
The second most useful is that it does not get brighter, louder or faster towards the end. Most things designed to hold attention do exactly that.
Light matters in a dark room
A display in a dark bedroom is a small floodlight pointed at a child's face. Even the ones that dim are brighter than the room. Audio has none of that, which is why it is the format that survives lights-out.
If a device does have lights, look for something that fades rather than blinks. A slow glow can be used to pace breathing; a blinking one just keeps a child awake.
Storyball's night mode
Night Time is a separate set of content rather than the same games turned down: quieter stories, slower games, dimmed lights, and nothing that asks a child to stand up. The stories finish rather than hooking into the next one.
It is the half hour between the bath and the bed, and switching to it is one tap in the app.
Storyball is our answer to this
A screen-free ball that children have to move to play. The app is free and pairs it in about a minute.
Free. No account, no in-app purchases, nothing collected about your child.