Does bedtime feel like a fresh negotiation every night, or does your child know exactly what happens next?

When pajamas go missing, homework suddenly appears, and screens make winding down harder, bedtime can quickly become a battle. This episode shows how a predictable routine can reduce negotiation, create security, support better sleep, and help your child move toward greater independence.

Listeners will gain:

• A practical framework for building a calm, consistent bedtime routine without turning it into a rulebook.
• Ways to create screen-free connection before bed, including a focused 5-to-10-minute connection window.
• Strategies for keeping the routine useful when real life brings travel, illness, sports, teenagers pushing back, or unexpected disruptions.

Play the episode to learn how to start a seven-night bedtime reset that gives your family more connection, calm, and confidence.

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Create a Calmer Home

The Connected Dad Course helps you regulate your emotions, strengthen connection, and build family routines that meet everyone's needs. Start creating the calm, confidence, and connection your family needs.

Learn more and enroll here: https://dadcentral.ca/connected-dad-course/

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Timestamps:

• 00:00 The importance of predictable bedtime routines
• 01:10 Research on consistent bedtimes and better sleep
• 03:40 Why routines create security and reduce negotiation
• 05:47 The five Cs of a calm bedtime routine
• 07:34 Example bedtime routine and research recommendations
• 08:05 Connection before correction
• 10:30 Building children's confidence and responsibility
• 12:38 Technology, screens, and the evening reset
• 14:32 Adapting routines when life gets in the way
• 16:33 The seven-day dad routine challenge
• 17:40 Key takeaways for supporting sleep
• 18:45 The Connected Dad Course resource

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Dad Central is a podcast that supports fathers in navigating fatherhood, reducing stress, building confidence, managing parenting stress, and improving parenting skills, including discipline, co-parenting, custody issues, calm parenting, and effective communication with children, to foster happy children and strong parent-child relationships.