Sheryl and Clark, the husband and wife team behind the podcast Sleep Tight Relax, describe the it like this. Sleep Tight Relax is a bedtime show for the young and young at heart. Every week we help you and your children prepare to drift calmly off to sleep. It is a mix of dream inducing bedtime stories, relaxation techniques, calming nature sounds, and soothing sleep music.
Links from this Episode:
- Kid Podcast Guide
- Sleep Tight Relax Website
- Sleep Tight Relax on Apple Podcasts
- Sleep Tight Relax on Spotify
- Flippy the Walrus Explores the Backyard Episode
Sleep Tight Relax was created for kids, but is appropriate for all ages. This podcast makes bedtime, quality time, by helping busy minds become calm, focused, and relaxed. Some episodes are 20 minutes long, and other episodes are about two and a half hours long with the first five minutes being a short story and the rest being a soundscape your kids can listen to while they fall asleep.
Guide to Kid Podcasts
One of my favorite parenting tools is kid podcasts. I use them when I’m running errands with the kiddos to keep them from complaining the whole time. When I need a mom break, I’ll just grab an easy activity like coloring pages or a sensory bin and turn on a kid podcast. The kids will be entertained for at least half an hour. I know that kid podcasts would help you in your life too, which is why I made a guide to kid podcasts. There are eight categories ranging from science to mindfulness to audio drama.
With at least three episodes in each category, there are 27 podcasts in total on the guide. I’ve listened to each of the podcasts so I can attest to them being kid-friendly. I put my email at the bottom of the guide so that if you try a couple with your kids and none of them are a good fit, you can email me and I will personally help you find a kid podcast that works for your littles and you, you can grab this guide at the link in the show notes.
The Duo Behind Sleep Tight Relax
My name is Clark and I write and produce a number of podcasts for children. They include Sleep Tight Stories, Sleep Tight Science, and the one we’re talking about today. Sleep Tight Relax. I do this full-time from a small studio in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on the east coast of Canada.
My wife does all the voiceovers and all of the storytelling. She has been teaching elementary school for many years. As a teacher she has always used stories in her practice and she loves telling stories. In my previous career, I enjoyed stories and producing stories as well, in different ways.
We started a different podcast, Sleep Tight Stories for that reason. When Covid just began we had a little bit more time together so we started doing more, including this podcast. The Sleep Tight Relax audience is a little bit older or a little bit more mature in terms of their ability to handle longer episodes. In my past life, I did research on children’s behaviors and habits. The length of the episodes Sleep Tight Relax tends to suit slightly older children.
We want to use this podcast to help kids become healthier and happier. Another goal of this podcast is to help parents have something in their bedtime routines that can help make them easier. The podcast has a mixture of stories and mindfulness methods to help kids become more mindful. There are some very basic relaxation techniques included. Some episodes also include sleep music at the end. From the feedback that we get, it seems to help some children with anxiety get a good night’s rest for the most part.
Settle Down with Sleep Music and Stories
We want to help parents. So the focus is on the kids, but really if we can help their children look forward to and be able to settle down at bedtime and have a good night’s sleep, then it’s mission accomplished.
For Sleep Tight Stories, kids often say they need more than one story to fall asleep and they want more. In Sleep Tight Relax the episodes are a little bit longer and we have a mixture of different types of things that we do. The ultimate goal is for them to fall asleep before our audio finishes. I think that makes the parents happy as well as the kids.
It reminds me of listening to your auntie tell you a story at night. The vibe is very relaxed. The stories are not mellow or boring, but very relaxed and calm.
Follow Sleep Tight Relax
You can find Sleep Tight Relax wherever you listen to your podcasts, or you can go to our website. It’s sleeptightrelax.com and is linked above.
Original Stories and Sleep Music
I have started to write more original stories for Sleep Tight Relax. One which we just released is called Flippy the Walrus. That is a very short story and at the end of the story the sleep music soundtrack will continue for a couple hours. This will help the child go to sleep. That would be my favorite.
Upper Elementary Focus
I would say upper elementary school or middle school. Some of our other podcasts I would say are as young as kindergarten. I think kindergarten is a little too young for Sleep Tight Relax because they don’t have the attention spans. We do stories like Dr. Doolittle which might be too much for them.
The Gift of Rest
If you know someone or family who can use Sleep Tight Relax in their life, will you share this episode with them?
To learn about more Kid Podcasts, grab my Kid Podcast Guide which is linked above.
