NTT East and NTT DX Partners, together with Nippon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippon Publishing Co., Ltd.), Nippon Television Holdings (Nippon Television HD), and Brain Sleep, are collaborating to develop a new project for the corporate community “ZAKONE” that aims to solve sleep problems. The project will be released as a new audio-only picture book “Good Night Bookstore Mimimin” that solves the problem of putting children to bed on the audiobook distribution service “audiobook.jp”.
Japan is said to be the country that sleeps the least in the world. Children also sleep for short periods of time, and this problem is getting worse every year.

Teppei Ogata, director of NTT East ZAKONE, said, “According to a survey, more than 60% of mothers raising children are worried about putting their children to bed. More than 60% of respondents said it takes more than 30 minutes to put them to bed.”
In light of this background, they came up with the idea of ​​audio content (audio picture books) specifically for reading to sleep. In order to shorten the time it takes for children to fall asleep, they developed an audio picture book that focuses on the voice, reading style, and story.
“It is an audio picture book that collects and analyzes children’s sleep data and brainwaves to help them fall asleep faster. Test results have shown that children who are used to being read to can fall asleep in about seven minutes less time,” says Ogata.

To celebrate the release of “Good Night Bookstore Mimimin,” a reading to sleep event was held in Tokyo on December 1st. About 40 parents and children participated, and a “sleep reading” demonstration was given by Sachie Sugiue, a former Nippon Television announcer.

Ms. Yukie Ito, general manager of Misora ​​Nursery School (Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture), who participated in the event, commented, “At our nursery school, we use music box CDs to put children to sleep, but we have never read to them. It seems to be effective, so we would like to try it.” She also said, “I think that communicating how to read to children to sleep is an effective way for nursery schools to support parents”.

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