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Time to Go to Bed

The hardest ten minutes of the day

Play this lessonNarrated out loud. No account, works offline.

Also available in Spanish. The app stops after two lessons a day and suggests something to do away from the screen.

What it teaches

These are the lines the lesson comes back to, and the ones a child actually remembers afterwards.

Not feeling tired isn't proof you aren't.

Your body learns the order.

How it starts

Bedtime is the hardest ten minutes of the day in almost every house in the world. Not because you are difficult. Because of something real that happens in your body, which I am going to explain, because it is much easier to beat something once you know what it is.

How the lesson goes

Why you don't feel tired

  1. Your body wakes up in the evening
  2. The last thing you did was exciting
  3. Tired feels like wide awake

What a short night costs you

  1. Things you learned don't stick as well
  2. Small problems feel enormous
  3. Your body has less to fight germs with

The bedtime order

  1. Teeth, pyjamas, water
  2. Lights low, screens already gone
  3. One book or one quiet thing

When you can't switch off

  1. Slow breaths — in for four, out for six
  2. Name five things you can hear
  3. Save the worry out loud for tomorrow

The question at the end

You don't feel tired at bedtime. What does that mean?

For the grown-up

Every lesson ends by handing the child something to do off the screen, and telling you what was taught so you can use the same words.

Try this today: Set up tonight's bedtime right now while you're awake: pyjamas out, book picked, water poured, screens put away.

Then: Tell a grown-up the order you're doing it in tonight.

More in At Home

The whole library is free

Twenty-four narrated lessons for ages 4 to 9, in English and Spanish. No account, no sign-up, no ads, and nothing your child does in the app ever leaves the device — you can check that yourself with the network tab open. Open the lessons.