Meet Podi Paws: The Family Behind Little Sands

I’ve got a little challenge for you. Over the next 24 hours, think about all the times you mention time to your kids.

We’re leaving the house in ten minutes. Five more minutes of TV and then it’s dinner. Last ten minutes at the park. Bedtime is in fifteen minutes. Just give me a minute to finish the dishes. You need to brush your teeth for two minutes. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.

Using minutes to describe time to kids is like using directions to describe how hungry you are.

The first time I noticed this was when my four-year-old tried bargaining over how much time she had left to play. I said ten minutes. “How about five?” she replied. She was so used to obscure numbers of time that she didn’t actually understand how long that was.

Little kids can’t understand time until about the age of six. Time is invisible, it's abstract. There’s nothing tangible for them to hold on to. That’s where Little Sands fits in.

The beginning

I’m Chir, a Sri Lankan living in New Zealand, married to Beau. We’re raising our little family in Auckland, and amongst the chaos that is three under five, have also decided that launching a small business is something we can handle.

Podi Paws is a passion project that grew over two maternity leaves. Months of product testing, refining, designing, measuring, packaging templates, website set-up and social media management have finally led to launching our first collection – Little Sands Visual Timers.

These timers came out of all those “five more minutes” moments in our lives. We tried digital timers, phone timers; and yes, in a way, these timers told us when time was up, but they didn’t show us that time was passing.

The hourglasses were different; watching the sand slowly fall gave kids a visual way to see time pass. It's predictable, it's visual, it's calm, and it's easy to understand. It's almost soothing, like watching fish in a fish tank.

There’s a win that came through when we consistently started using the timers. The arguments, fusses and crankiness were no longer directed at mum and dad. It was a race against the timer. “Can you put your shoes on before the sand runs out?” This became a fun game, much more fun than mum nagging twelve times to please put your shoes on!

Our eldest soon learnt which timer was the longer one – “the blue one, not the yellow!” she would protest when I was setting a timer to signal the start of bedtime routine.

Podi Paws

“Podi” means little in Sinhala, and “Paws” comes from the way we think of our little ones, like tiny cubs finding their way through the world.

We created Podi Paws to bring a little more calm into everyday family life. We’re not promising perfect routines, but we’re making the real, messy, struggles of your day just that little bit easier.

We believe that children thrive when they know what’s happening next. They need routine, predictability and clarity in what’s happening in their day.

Little Sands visual timers are great for any routine. Getting dressed in the morning, tidying up before dinner, winding down before bed, finishing screentime without a meltdown. Whatever your routine or transition is, we’ve got a visual timer for it!

You don’t need to worry about replacing batteries. There’s no beeping, no flashing lights, no screens to distract, it’s a simple hourglass that works every time.

A visual timer creates boundaries that are easier for children to understand. Most of the time, a meltdown for ending screentime isn’t actually about screentime ending; it’s about the transition seemingly coming out of nowhere. The visual timer shows them the passing of time, a direct cue showing that screentime is coming to an end.

Designed for family life

Our timers are made using natural materials of wood and glass, with a protective outer shell which keeps little hands safer during everyday use. The timers are sized for grownups and kids alike (no tiny little boardgame timers here!), and the soft colours and aesthetic design make these beautiful
Montessori-style visual timers fit seamlessly into your homes.

Dropped in the bath, knocked off the shelf, lobbed across the room by a toddler; these visual timers have been personally tested by my second child (which, if you’ve got a second child, you’ll know why they’re the product tester).

Everything we create is designed to feel practical, calming, sensory-friendly, and beautiful. Designed by parents in New Zealand, for real family life.

 Whether you’re a parent, caregiver, teacher at an ECE centre, we hope our timers help create calmer transitions, gentler routines and stronger connections with the little ones around you.

View the range