Guide for parents
A calm bedtime routine with a story
Updated · by the Moonfox team
A bedtime routine is the same short sequence of calm steps every night, such as a wash, pyjamas, teeth, a story and lights out, at about the same time. It helps because children sleep better when the end of the day is predictable, and a story is one of the oldest and best ways to end it.
What the research says
- Bedtime problems are common: around 20–30% of young children have significant trouble settling at bedtime or wake in the night (Journal of Pediatric Psychology review, 2024).
- Routines help, and more consistency helps more. In a study of 10,085 children across 13 countries, having a bedtime routine was linked with better sleep in a “dose-dependent” way: the more nights a week a family kept the routine, the better the children slept. Children with a routine every night slept more than an hour longer than children with none, and had fewer sleep and daytime behaviour problems (Mindell et al., Sleep, 2015; summary by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine).
This guide is general information, not medical advice. If your child's sleep worries you, talk to your paediatrician or health visitor.
A simple shape for the last half hour
- Same time, roughly. Start the routine at about the same time each night, weekends included where you can.
- Same order. For example: bath or wash, pyjamas, teeth, toilet, a glass of water, choose a cuddly toy. Predictability is the point; children relax when they know what comes next.
- Lights down. Dim the room as you go. Keep bright screens, games and videos out of this half hour.
- A story in bed. The story is the reward for being in bed, not a negotiation before it.
- The same goodnight. A familiar last line, every night, signals that the day is over.
The hard part is usually the first few steps: “five more minutes”, the pyjamas, the teeth. That's where a little play helps most.
Where Moonfox fits in
Moonfox is an iPhone app that makes a new bedtime story each night. It was designed around the routine above, so the story is the end of bedtime rather than one more screen.
- The Bedtime Quest. You choose the routine steps once. At bedtime your child's story friend calls each one out as a small quest (pyjamas become star armour), and your child says “done!” or presses a big button. Tonight's story opens once they're in bed. There are no streaks, no points and no loss for skipping a night.
- Ready when bedtime is. Tonight's episode is made in the afternoon, so nobody waits at bedtime.
- Less screen. After the first picture the screen can go dark and the story carries on as sound. There are no games, feeds or autoplay.
- It winds down on purpose. The last scenes get slower and dimmer, and the story ends with a goodnight in your child's name. Soft sleep sounds, made on the iPhone, can follow on a timer.
- If they wake. An “I woke up” button plays a few short, comforting lines in their friend's voice, recorded in the daytime and played from the iPhone.
- You can see if it's working. Set-up asks how long bedtime takes now, and a bedtime report in Parent settings shows how long the routine took each night. It is kept only on your iPhone.
Tips for using a story app at bedtime
- Set the phone up before the routine starts, then put it face down or out of reach; the story works as sound.
- Keep the volume low. A quiet voice is easier to settle to.
- Let your child make the story's choices; it gives them some control at the end of a day of being told what to do.
- Keep it to one story. The same ending every night is part of what makes a routine work.
Moonfox is free to download and each child's first night is free. Read more about how Moonfox personalises a story.