I have listened to random YouTube content and podcasts to fall asleep for years now. When I live alone I simply use a tablet or phone, with screen facing down before YT Premium, now with the screen simply off. If someone is sleeping in the same room or besides me, I put in a single 2nd gen AirPod to the ear facing up, sometime near the morning I find it in the bed and put it to charge. In case I don't fall asleep for long I change the AirPod to let the other one to charge. No wireless earbuds before plain AirPods did it for me, the sealing ones (i.e. pros) are not comfortable to me.
I do exactly the same as you described to fall asleep.
If you ever want to save the money on youtube premium, the Brave browser on iOS lets you listen to YouTube content in the background or with the screen off. Just make sure you enable that feature in it's settings. It also blocks all of the pre/mid/post ads.
