If your toddler melts down the second you say “bed,” it probably isn’t because they don’t know how to sleep.

It’s leftover from the day.

By 7pm they’re overstimulated, you’re depleted, and the bedroom is where it all collides. Sleep training apps treat that like a night-time technique issue. It isn’t. It’s a missing off-ramp.

What actually works is a 20-minute wind-down that starts before anyone is in the bedroom:

• Lights down in the main room

• Same two steps, every night, in the same order

• You sit on the floor. You don’t negotiate. You don’t explain the whole routine.

The tantrum at the door is usually the child asking “are we still doing the thing we always do?” If the answer is yes, it gets shorter. If the answer is a new speech every night, it gets longer.

I run 45-minute 1:1s on this exact pattern — sleep and tantrums, one problem at a time. Practical. No noise.