The Same Moon, a Deployment Bedtime Story and Countdown Chain

In a few weeks your child's dad leaves for nine months, and you will be doing bedtime on your own for all of them. Your 5-year-old already asks how many more nights until Dad comes home, and you want an answer they can see and hold.

When a parent is away for weeks or months, bedtime changes. This printable book gives a child something to hold on to each night: a slow bedtime story, a card of questions for the phone or video call, and a paper countdown chain that gets shorter every night.

It is written for a child of about 4 to 7 and the grown-up who is doing bedtime, and also for the parent who is going away. It is for a deployment, a long work posting or any long trip. It says nothing about where a grown-up is or what their work involves.

What is inside (14 pages):
- The Same Moon, a story of about 726 words, 7 minutes read aloud. You are in bed and look at the Moon, and the story gently tells you what is true about it: it has no light of its own, it always turns the same side to Earth, and everyone who looks at it sees that side. Pauses and breathing cues wind down toward sleep.
- A fill-in page, All about my grown-up, for feelings and favorites.
- Moon watch, eight circles to draw the Moon you see.
- Questions for our call: ten things to ask and six things to tell, with check boxes.
- A recording guide, so the parent can read the story into a phone before leaving and the child can play it every night.
- The countdown chain: how to make it, with three sheets of cut-out links. Each sheet of moon or star links has 60 links, so printing seven gives 420 nights. A third sheet has gold links to write on.
- A last page for grown-ups with each fact and where it was checked.

Print on US Letter or A4 at 100 percent. A grown-up does the cutting with scissors. It is a pre-made PDF, not personalized.

This printable was created with the help of AI tools, then checked fact by fact.

Made by Made for This Day — we wrote it, we sell it, and we answer for it.

Instant digital download. Nothing is posted to you — the file is yours the moment you pay, and you can print it as many times as you like.