People.com Celebrity Parents Dax Shepard Reveals the Very Unconventional Hack He Learned to Get His Daughter to Sleep Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell share two daughters: Lincoln, 8, and Delta, 6 By Vanessa Etienne Vanessa Etienne Twitter Vanessa Etienne is an Emerging Content Writer-Reporter for PEOPLE. Prior to joining in April 2021, she served as a reporter for Men's Health Magazine and BET Digital after freelancing for publications such as The New York Times and Everyday Health. Originally from northern Virginia, Vanessa is a proud Haitian American with a love for R&B music and mental health topics. She graduated from North Carolina State University with a bachelor's in Communication and Public Relations before earning her master's degree in Journalism from the City University of New York. People Editorial Guidelines Published on November 30, 2021 05:06 PM Share Tweet Pin Email Dax Shepard might have the ultimate parenting hack. In a recent PEOPLE and Parents magazine video, Shepard, 46, and wife Kristen Bell — who share daughters Lincoln, 8, and Delta, 6 — discuss the wins and losses they've faced as mom and dad. Shepard raves that one of his most recent wins was figuring out an unconventional method to help his daughter fall asleep instantly. "I figured out that if I scratch my younger daughter's head extremely hard — her request — she is out cold within 90 seconds," he says. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard with daughters Lincoln and Delta. Dax Shepard Reveals the Important but Simple Way He and Kristen Bell Told Their Daughters About Sex Despite the major win, he also admits to his latest miss: "I gave a 'no TV for the weekend' consequence, which was later revealed to be a barbaric punishment for us." "Yeah, that will never happen again," Bell, 41, chimes in. The actors also share some of the various things they wish they knew before becoming parents, like the inevitable noise and mess in the house. "I guess I thought they're littler people, right? They might be less loud. And they're not," Bell says. "The volume is three times what a normal person should be, and the problem is it's not just volume, it's the consistency of noise. It's like having NPR on all the time — so two stations of NPR on all the time — but if it were all questions. No answers, no fun stories, just all questions. And that's a lot." Cindy Ord/Getty Images Meanwhile, Shepard wishes he had been a little more prepared for the clutter that comes with raising kids. "I wish someone had let me know that I will never have anything nice again. That would've been a good heads-up," he shares. "If you like that there are no crumbs and toys on your floor, say goodbye to it. The quicker you come to accept that you're gonna live in a pigsty and that everything will be vaguely broken — the quicker you can accept that, the happier the experience is. We fought it for like six months." "It's not worth the stress," Bell adds. You just gotta surrender, because if you spend your whole time, you're gonna lose and you're gonna be mentally fatigued. Then your kids see that you're stressed 'cause objects are in different places."