MP3 Player for Toddlers
November 23, 2014 4:53 PM   Subscribe

I'd like to get my soon-to-be 3-yr-old nephew an mp3 player, preferably with external speakers, and external SD card slot. A previous thread here suggested the SweetPea, but there seems to be a lot of debate about the quality of the current model. The Sansa Shake was also mentioned, but seems to be out of production. The others I've looked at seem to be less than impressive. Any current suggestions?
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing to Shopping (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I had the SweetPea it was pointless.
To be honest, check with the parents on this. In my house, kid music gets played via Pandora or Spotify from existing music playing devices with speakers. Or kid is on an iPad and can play music or videos through it online or offline. Kid never ever ever used his SweetPea or iPod. If we're on a plane he'd rather watch videos.
posted by k8t at 6:27 PM on November 23, 2014


We had both of those for our first kid. The Shake worked okay for things like riding in the bike trailer. The Sweetpea (older model) is still working but the UI is a nightmare and we almost never use it. Frustrating for parents and kids both. And both of those eat batteries like crazy.

For our second kid, I bought her Kidz Gear headphones -- they allow the parent to limit the sound levels -- and a used iPod Shuffle. Gave the older kid my old iPod Nano and the same headphones. The kid MP3s are just not all that great
posted by xeney at 6:28 PM on November 23, 2014


We have a Fisher Price Tough Kid Music Player that is OK, but when I went to find a decent replacement, I couldn't find anything worthwhile.

We let our little ones use a 3rd-gen iPod Nano with over-the-ear headphones. The UI/Clickwheel combo is doable for our 4-year-old. Other times, we'll play music through Spotify on our iPhones to a Bluetooth speaker.
posted by puritycontrol at 9:24 AM on November 24, 2014


I wanted an mp3 player my three-year-old could wear at naptime in preschool, to put lullabies on to help him sleep.

I spent a long time looking, and eventually got this clip-type MP3 player for my son (it was about $20 at the time.) Then I took an old pair of wired headphones -- the type with a plastic band that sits on your head -- and attached the clip to it. Then I taped the headphone wires to the band, so that there were no wires left hanging about to get tangled.

The whole setup worked -- it was easy enough for my son to put on and turn on. However, it utterly failed at its intended purpose, as it only put him to sleep one time. Oh well...
posted by wyzewoman at 1:53 PM on November 24, 2014


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