Author’s practical guidance
Where it sits relative to bedtime
Source named in the book: bedtime routine research (Mindell)
The same amount of watching costs you a different evening depending on where you put it.
Say this now
“Screen first, then bath. That's the order.”
Puts it before the routine, not inside it.
“It finished a while ago. Now it's bath.”
Works because there was a gap in between.
Do this
- Move the slot earlier rather than making it shorter, if evenings are hard.
- Leave a gap of half an hour between the ending and the first step of the routine.
- Keep the routine identical on screen days and non-screen days.
- Never put it after bath.
- Change one thing at a time and give it a week before judging whether it helped.
Avoid this
- Using it to fill the last half hour. That is the half hour the routine needed.
- Ending it and going straight to teeth. Two hard things stacked on each other.
- Blaming the light from it for a bad night. The displaced routine is the likelier culprit.
If it repeats
If bedtime has been bad for a while, move the slot two hours earlier for a week rather than removing it. That separates the question of when from the question of whether, and when is usually the one doing the damage.
Why the book suggests this
The same amount of watching costs you a different evening depending on where you put it. A slot at four is a slot. The same slot at seven lands inside the hour that decides how the night goes, and it competes with a routine that works precisely because it is the same every night.
The routine itself does the work — the same steps in the same order, starting at about the same time. Anything that displaces the first step tends to push the whole sequence later, and the sequence being late is what shortens the night.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Every Screen
45 prepared situations in this family area.