The first goodbye is the hardest. Practice it together. A research backed picture book that helps your 3 to 5 year old rehearse drop-off before it happens, plus the free grown-up kit that comes with every copy.
Every Beem Bunnies book follows Pip through one big childhood moment. Small to us. Enormous to them. Built on child development research, so you do not just read about the hard part. You practice it together, before it happens.
School starts soon, and everyone says it will be wonderful. Pip is not so sure. His tummy pops with a wobbly feeling that has two parts: a nervous part and an excited part.
Mama does not tell Pip to be brave. She shows him how. Together they build a special goodbye and practice it all week, so that when the real morning comes, it feels familiar.
Boop.
The goodbye ritual at the heart of the book takes ten seconds and travels anywhere: the classroom door, Grandma's house, the babysitter's porch. It is small enough to remember on a hard morning, and it belongs to just the two of you.
Thirty-two pages, painted in soft crayon. Here are the first five, just the way the story opens.
The story is built on what the American Academy of Pediatrics says actually helps at drop-off: a predictable goodbye ritual, a return marker a child can understand, and practicing the goodbye before the real day. Plus one idea of our own: naming the two-part feeling.
Inside the book, a QR code brings you here for the full kit: the research in plain words, the scripts, and every printable, ready the same morning.
Three moves from American Academy of Pediatrics guidance sit underneath the story: the same short goodbye ritual every day, a return marker a child can understand instead of a clock time, and practicing the goodbye at home before the first day. Naming the two-part feeling, nervous and excited in the same place, is the book's own approach to what the AAP calls a normal stage. Read the full write-up at separation anxiety at drop-off, or see the research behind every Beem Bunnies book at For Parents.
What parents askYes. Pip's tummy fills with a wobbly "popcorn" feeling as his first day of school gets closer. His mother, Mama Mimi, does not tell him to be brave. She names the two-part feeling, a nervous part and an excited part, then builds a three-step goodbye ritual with him: forehead, words, wave. The story is the practice, not just a description of it. For the research behind that approach, see separation anxiety at drop-off.
Pip's tummy is full of popcorn a week before school starts. Mama Mimi kneels down, names the wobbly feeling for what it is, and the two of them build a goodbye all their own: forehead, words, wave. They practice it everywhere that week, in the kitchen, at bath time, out in the front garden, so it belongs to them and not to one doorway. Papa turns the school day into a song so Pip knows when Mama comes back, and big sister Hana admits she cried a little on her first day too. At the gate Pip's feet feel heavy as stones, but the practiced goodbye carries him through, and at the bell Mama is right where the song said she would be.
Written for ages 3 to 5, the range where drop-off tears and first-day worry are most common. It is 32 pages, sized for a bedtime read-aloud, with short lines and one idea per page so a three-year-old can follow every turn.
The story itself, plus a QR code on the inside pages that brings grown-ups to this page for a free kit: a goodbye ritual chart, first-week tips, a settling-in guide, talk-about-it questions, and read-aloud tips. If you already have your copy, unlock the kit below. If you do not have the book yet, you can get it on Amazon.
The six moves that help the most, from goodbye ritual to pickup questions.
Pick your touch, your words, and your wave together, then print it for the door.
What the first month usually looks like, so tears on day three do not feel like failure.
One gentle question for every part of Pip's story, perfect for the walk home.
How to read this book on the mornings that wobble.
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Our guidance draws on publicly available research from the American Academy of Pediatrics (healthychildren.org). Beem Bunnies is not affiliated with or endorsed by the AAP.