Pick the one thing that will not move
Choose an anchor small enough to repeat anywhere: a fixed order of three steps and a fixed closing line. Teeth, two books, torch off. Then the same last sentence every night, in every house, from either parent. See you in the morning, sleep tight. Anchor it to the order, not the clock. A 7.15pm bedtime is usually the first thing to go in a move. Teeth, two books, torch off survives a caravan park, a serviced apartment while you wait for housing, and a grandparent's spare room in Wagga. A book works as the anchor because it is the same object in two places at once, and because it does the talking when nobody has anything left. Australians already do this at scale: the Australian Library and Information Association recorded 2,204,658 registered participants across 16,632 locations for National Simultaneous Storytime in 2025.
The night-one box
Pack a box you can find in the dark and label it NIGHT ONE. Pyjamas, toothbrushes, the three books in rotation, the nightlight, the specific toy, and the doona cover the child recognises. It rides in the car, not in the truck. On the first night, run the routine in a bare room with a lamp on the floor and boxes to the ceiling. It will feel silly. Do it anyway, because then the new house has already been somewhere your child went to sleep normally. Give it a fortnight before you judge it. Broken sleep, a return to the big bed, a kid who is fine all day and undone at 7pm, all of that is ordinary in a move.
Record the books before the gate closes
The most useful hour in the week before a departure is sitting on the couch reading books into a phone. Fifteen books, rotated, covers a long stretch. Record the closing line too, and a few ordinary non bedtime things: morning mate, eat your Weet-Bix, I will hear about the swimming carnival when I get back. Name the files by book title, not Voice Memo 47. Nobody should be scrolling an unsorted list at 7.20pm with a kid melting down next to them. Let the child pick which recording plays. On a night when nothing else in the house is theirs to decide, that choice is a real one.
Run the clock the child is in
Perth sits two hours behind the east coast, three once daylight saving starts down south, Darwin runs on the half hour, and a deployment can put a parent eight or nine hours out. So separate the call from lights out. If the window that actually exists is 4.45pm on a Tuesday, do the book at 4.45pm and leave bath, teeth and bed exactly where they are. A story does not have to be the last thing that happens to count. Given a choice between an early call and a late one, take the early one. A 9.30pm ring wakes a child who was already settled, and then both ends spend an hour on the phone about it.
Fifteen minutes on a bad line
Assume the connection is poor and the window is short. Do not spend it on how was school, which gets you a shrug in any hemisphere. Give the call a job. At bedtime the job that works is a book, because it hands both ends a script and neither person has to be interesting while the audio drops out. A few apps put the same picture book on both screens and keep both faces visible while the page turns. StoryLink is one, and there are American ones that have been doing it for years. Whatever you use, test it on the base wifi before the parent leaves, not on the night. If the line will not carry video, drop to audio and read from two paper copies of the same book, one at each end. Two copies of the same op shop paperback is a legitimate system.
The sentences for when you cannot say where or when
Write down the three or four sentences you are allowed to say, then use those exact words every time, so the answer never sounds like it is being decided on the spot. I cannot tell you where Dad is. I can tell you he is with his people, he has his gear, and he rings when he is allowed. On dates: I do not know yet, and when I know, you will know that day. Paper chains and sleeps in a jar are good when the date is locked in and quietly awful when it is not. Where the date keeps moving, count nothing and use the rhythm instead. The book happens every night whether or not the call does.
The parent at home, and who to ring
Whoever is holding the house has a 7pm as well, with a work day behind it and a lunchbox ahead of it. Cut the standard on purpose rather than by accident: one big cook on Sunday, cereal for dinner on a Wednesday is a meal, and the washing can live on the Hills hoist for two days. Take the specific offers and let the vague ones go. I will grab Ella from the pick up line on Tuesday is help. Let me know if you need anything is not, and you do not owe it an answer. For what a neighbour cannot fix, Defence Member and Family Support is the place to start, still called the Defence Community Organisation in older paperwork. The Defence Member and Family Helpline runs 24 hours on 1800 624 608, so put it in your phone before you need it. Ask plainly: childcare while a partner is away, someone to talk to, or a hand with a school that does not know why a kid has changed schools three times. Ring your school office and ask whether they have a Defence School Mentor, a Defence funded role that many schools with ADF enrolments have. None of this shortens a posting cycle. What it does is mean that at 7pm, in whichever house, the next thing is already decided.