Colgate and Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) want what’s best for you and your family. That’s why we've partnered to help you begin encouraging healthy habits at a young age with the Healthy Bedtime Habits Program. Once your child makes washing hands, brushing teeth and reading part of their bedtime routine, those healthy habits will follow them throughout their lives.

For extra help encouraging healthy habits, you and your family can participate in the washing, brushing and reading log.

Questions and Answers

Program details

What does the program offer?
To continue promoting healthy habits in your family, you can access a variety of activities on this site, including message boards, a personalized storybook activity, online gamesand expert articles.

What is the Healthy Bedtime Habits message board?
The Healthy Bedtime Habits message board is the place for you and other parents to share your healthy bedtime habit teaching tips. If it works for your family, it may work for another family. Read through categorized tips or share your own.

How can my child star in their own storybook?
Simply click on the link and follow the directions to personalize a storybook featuring your child, Dr. Rabbit, Handy the Octopus and Riffington. You’ll be able to insert your child’s name as the name of the main character in their own storybook adventure.

What other games and activities are there?
The Healthy Bedtime Habits Program offers all sorts of other fun online games and activities for kids. Your kids can battle plaque monsters, eliminate germs and meet fun characters all while learning important healthy habits.

What are the expert articles?
The expert articles provide a look at what the experts have to say about parenting and encouraging healthy habits. Learn about topics ranging from raising readers to how to get your kids to brush properly.

Tell me more about Colgate and RIF’s partnership.
Colgate-Palmolive and Reading Is Fundamental® (RIF), the nation’s oldest and largest children’s literacy nonprofit organization, first teamed up in 2004 to provide new book collections to children nationwide. Colgate is committed to promoting children’s literacy and has contributed more than $800,000 to RIF since 2004 to help share the joy of reading and build healthy reading and brushing habits among children. Since the program began, more than 58,000 books have been donated to children across the country.

The Healthy Bedtime Habits Log

How does the Hand Washing, Brushing and Reading Log work?
After signing up and personalizing a log for your family, you can enter a star indicating whether or not your child washed hands, brushed teeth and read that day. Your children will earn rewards for each day they complete their healthy routine. The more days that you log, the more rewards your family will earn.

How do I navigate through the Healthy Bedtime Habits Log?
The log is divided into weekly pages. When first accessing the log, you’ll automatically default to week one. Use the scroll bar on the right to navigate up or down to see each day of the week. After you complete one week, you’ll advance to the next by using the navigation at the lower left of the log. You can log your family’s progress for up to eight weeks!

How is the star "total" calculated?
The star total is calculated based on total amount of stars earned divided by the total number of children. This makes the program work for families who have one child or 10! It will also motivate all participating children to adopt healthy habits since your family’s rewards depend on individual contributions.

How do my children earn the kids character toothbrush when the log is complete?
Once your family completes the online log, we’ll send you an email notification that you have now qualified for your free toothbrush. Just follow the link provided in that email and complete the redemption form and send in the mail. Your kids character toothbrush should arrive within eight to 12 weeks of your submission. Your family will receive one toothbrush per child who successfully completes the log.

What happens when we are finished with the log?
When you have completed your log and helped your children develop their healthy bedtime habits, you can play all the fun games, create a storybook, contribute to the message board and read or forward any of the helpful articles. You’ll receive your free kids character toothbrush in the mail!