Is a Tonies box worth it?

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Considering it for my three year old. He loves books and songs but I’m wondering if it’s actually worth it or just an expensive gimmick!

There are so many characters I’m also not sure where to start and I’m a bit confused about the “music” aspect of the box - how does that work?

do you rate it if you’ve got one?

My toddler is a Tonies stan. It's her best friend. But she loves songs and dancing so she only has music ones, have never seen her sit through a story. I also buy the empty Tonies and then download songs onto them to make it cheaper.

It was a present and I thought it was nice but wouldn't be used that much. It's on every day.

Thank you - sorry to sound stupid but where do you download songs from?

My 3 year old loves his. DH didn't want to buy one as thought it wouldn't be used. His godparents all clubbed together to get DS one for his first Christmas present and he adores it. Listens to stories on it to help him drift off (we obviously read bedtime stories to him too), listens to stories in the morning if he's up before we are/we want to be, listens to it on long journeys, in short, listens to it all the time. The figures are sweet and he gets a lot of enjoyment out of playing with them, too. It's great, non screen based, entertainment.

Yoto box is another that I've heard are good. They use cards rather than figures, which I think is probably better for travelling, but they seem flimsy to me and I like the fact that the Tonies figures stand up to typical rough toddler handling. The box is super easy to use - DS learned how to use it from really early on - and we wouldn't be without it now. The figures are a bit pricey but they make great little pressies and stocking fillers.

We've had a Toniebox for about 5 years. It's been great - perfect for a 3 year old. My 6 year old has a yoto box now which I think is better for older kids. It's hard plastic and uses cards (unlike the Toniebox which is soft) so Toniebox is better for little ones

My kids love theirs. We’ve spent about £200 total buying the box and then loads of stories though, so it’s not cheap.

We have a yoto and a yoto mini (for the car but actually gets more use than the normal yoto). Kids are 3 and 6, but littlest could use independently at 2.5, I think I'd get a yoto mini.

We absolutely love our tonies box my daughter is 2&half. It's brilliant she takes it everywhere with her. She also plays with the characters aswell.
I have a £15 off the box/bundle if you want it.

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I looked at a tonies and a yoto and went yoto, very happy with it. Tonies felt gimmicky to me, less educational, and more expensive for what you get with each character compared to the yoto cards. We use our yoto player like a gro clock too, it has a backlight that changes colour a the time to get up which has been great.

100% yes my boys are 6 almost 7 and 4 in January and they share a bedroom. The tonie box figure sits on the box, and is used every single night. If one of them wakes up my eldest will pop a figure on the box and it helps get them back to sleep. I use birthdays and Christmas presents from grandad to collect them as they are around £15 each figure. The Disney ones are amazing they sound just like the films and they also do the julia donaldson ones which my boys are really in to like room on the broom, zog, stick man etc. Get one you won't regret it!!

Thank you!

so, I’m being really simple here, but when you download content onto it where do you download from?

Il be honest we've never used it to load content onto it. We just buy the figures and each one is a different story. We've just had the peppa pig one given as a present for Christmas and it runs for 62 minutes and tells multiple stories. When you buy the box it comes with a creative tonie which is what you load the content onto but as we've never used that bit I'm not entirely sure how. Maybe someone else might be able to tell you, or the website is very useful to explain exactly how it works.

My DS has one and loves it, has it on most days and we have a mix of story and fact Tonies, I also buy the blank Tonies and download free content. It's amazing for car journeys! I download quizzes that we all join in with. When you buy a Toniebox you get an online account and you can use this account to download free content every month.

Has the Tonie box or Yoto helped anyone’s little ones drift off to sleep? 3 year old fighting bedtime and having major meltdowns hoping this will calm things down and make going to sleep a calm and peaceful process.

My DS has fallen asleep to his since he got it for his first birthday. He's nearly 5 now and still listens to a Tonie every night before sleep (we also read bedtime stories as well!) It's really helpful and even on nights where he's a little unsettled he'll happily pop a Tonie on and drift off to it. I think it helps to make the transition from 'awake and chatting to parents' to 'lights off, parents leaving, go to sleep now' a little gentler.

Thank you both for your comments we ordered one tonight 😊

My 3 year old LOVES his. It was a gift and probably one of the best ones he got - he loves to choose his own stories, he knows how to fast forward to the ones he wants. His 1 year old brother prefers knocking the box about and messing with the characters!

To put your own content on you need a creative tonie and the app - if you have music files on your phone you use the app to upload them to the blank tonie and then sync it - it's quite simple and the app will walk you through it. We had a CD of Julia Donaldson stories that I ripped onto the computer, transferred the files to my phone and then uploaded to the tonie.

I also buy a lot of our tonies secondhand on places like Vinted which does bring the cost down a bit.

Eta: the app itself often has free content you can upload to the blank tonies e.g. Christmas stories, Halloween stories, songs and stuff

My youngest DC both have a tonie box now. Bought one for DC’s birthday but older DC loved it so much, he wanted one too. They’re well worth it, they both listen to them every night after bedtime stories and they fall asleep listening to them. We’ve recorded ourselves reading their favourite books and added them to the creative Tonies so there’s actually little point in buying the tonie figures anymore.

If you're going to get anything, get a yoto. They're brill. Ours has been used every day for a year. There's loads of stuff on the app and freebies and extras. I've been very impressed with it.