Drink gruel

About this visual support

In many ways gruel is the softest meal of the evening. It needs no plate, no chewing and no debate about what is on the fork. That is exactly why it works so well as a signal: when the gruel comes out, play and rough-housing are over and teeth, pyjamas and bed are next. Many families notice that a child winds down on their own once the gruel becomes a fixed point, and grows restless when it turns up at different times.

A picture of gruel in the evening routine makes that predictability even clearer. The child sees what comes before and after, for example bath, gruel, teeth and a story. It helps most on the nights when someone other than usual is putting the child to bed, because the pictures show the same order whoever is in the kitchen. A concrete tip is to let the child fetch their own cup or bottle when the card appears, so it becomes something they do rather than something that just happens to them.

Remember that brushing teeth should come after the gruel, not before, and put the cards in that order. In Routined you can build the whole evening with gruel as its own step and let the child check it off. You can try the app for 14 days, and the visual supports here are free to download.