Bedtime with a young child rarely falls apart everywhere at once. It gives way at one step: the bath that turns into a swim, the second book that becomes a third. Lights-out slides a little later, the morning alarm doesn't, and the difference comes out of your child's sleep. This bedtime routine chart lays the evening out in pictures your child can follow, then helps you find the step that keeps giving way.

Why a routine, and why pictures

Sleep researchers describe a bedtime routine plainly: the same activities, in the same order, every night before the lights go out. A child who can't read yet can still follow that order when they can see it, which is the whole case for a visual bedtime routine. A picture on the door answers "what comes next?" before it turns into a debate.

What goes on the path is your family's call. The American Academy of Pediatrics sums up its own version as Brush, Book, Bed: help with brushing, read a favorite book or two, and go to bed at a regular time. Its one ordering rule: the toothbrush should be the last thing to touch teeth before bed. Milk or a snack belongs before brushing, and if you lay a snack stone after teeth, this page says so.

How this page works

The path starts at a setting sun and ends at a bed. Tap the painted pictures in the order your evening runs and each lands on the path as a stone, up to eight. Write your own for anything the pictures miss; it gets a plain stone with its first letter, ready to draw over on the printout. Tap any stone to change its minutes, move it earlier or later, or take it off with two taps.

Every stone carries its clock time, counted back from lights-out, and the first stone tells you when to begin. Some families call this a night time routine chart; either way, the start time is worth working out rather than guessing.

How much sleep, by age

Below the path, give your child's age and waking time. The chart works out the hours from lights-out to morning and sets them against the ranges in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine's consensus statement: eleven to fourteen hours a day for ages one and two, ten to thirteen for ages three to five, and nine to twelve for ages six to twelve. For the two younger groups those hours include naps, so the chart asks about naps and adds them in. If the night falls outside the range, one tap moves lights-out to the nearest time inside it.

The ranges are wide and sleep needs vary from child to child, so treat them as a band to stay within rather than a number to hit.

The week, and the step that keeps pushing bedtime late

After lights-out, tap tonight in the row of seven nights, then pick how many minutes late it ran and the stone where it stalled. By the third night it can name the step that stalls most often, its usual overrun, and roughly how much sleep the late nights cost if the morning stayed put.

That leaves two honest choices. Plan for the step as it really goes: one tap gives it the extra minutes and moves the start earlier, so lights-out holds. Or shorten it, with a five-minute warning before the bath ends or the number of books settled before the first one opens. The nights already logged stay until you clear the week, so the next seven test the new plan.

What the evidence does and does not say

The clearest test of a routine on its own is a 2009 randomized trial with 405 mothers of children aged seven months to three years. For two weeks the routine group kept the same three steps each night, a bath, a massage and quiet time such as cuddling or a lullaby, with lights out within half an hour of the bath. Their children fell asleep faster and woke less often and more briefly, and the mothers' mood improved. Johnson & Johnson's consumer products company paid for the study, and three of its four authors worked there, which is worth weighing.

A 2015 survey of more than ten thousand children under six in thirteen countries found a dose effect: the more nights a week a family kept a routine, the earlier the bedtimes, the quicker children fell asleep, and the longer they slept. That is an association, not proof, though it points the same way. No study has tested picture charts as such; this one simply makes the same order easy to keep, which is the part the research supports.

When to use it

Lay the path on a calm afternoon with your child choosing a picture or two, then print it and tape it low on the bedroom door. Log a week before changing anything. If mornings are the harder end of the day, the Out-the-Door Morning Chart counts back from the minute you leave; the Kids Daily Routine Chart covers after-school routines with cards your child turns over; and The Visual Schedule lays out a whole day in pictures.

If bedtime battles don't ease with a steady routine, or your child snores loudly or lies awake for long stretches, bring it up with your pediatrician.