Custom Bedtime Stories
Calibrated to Your Household
Not a swap-the-name template. A fully custom story, generated fresh, calibrated to your child's age and the values you care about.
Free to start. Ready in 30 seconds.
What “custom” actually means at Dreamtime
Most “custom” story services change a single detail - usually the name on page one. Dreamtime customises differently. Vocabulary, sentence length, and plot complexity are calibrated to your child's age. The theme is pulled from a pool you've picked. One or two values (kindness, courage, patience) are woven gently into the plot. You set the tone - calming, adventurous, funny - and choose the length. A recurring cast of characters comes back across nights. Your child is the listener, not a character - names are captured for UI display only, never used in story text. Every story is generated from scratch. No templates.
What you can customise
Age calibration
The maker adjusts sentence complexity, vocabulary, and plot pace to the youngest child in your household. 300 words for toddlers; 2,000 for older readers.
Theme pool
Over 20 options - dragons, unicorns, space, dinosaurs, pirates, farm animals. Pick a few; each night's story picks one from the pool.
Values woven in
Kindness, courage, patience, honesty, resilience, friendship, curiosity. Pick the ones that matter this month - one or two thread through each plot.
Tone
Calming for a wound-up bedtime. Adventurous for a quiet one. Funny for a tough night. Choose per-story or set a household default.
Story length
Short (about 2 minutes read-aloud), standard (5 minutes), or long (10 minutes). Pick by mood or by the time you actually have.
Family context
Optional free-text - "Dad works away Mon-Thu", "We just got a puppy called Biscuit". Shapes mood or incidental flavour, never drives the plot.
Recurring cast
Pin characters your child loves; they come back in future stories with consistent personality. Over weeks, your child builds a relationship with them.
Your custom story is 30 seconds away.
Who custom bedtime stories are for
Parents of fussy sleepers
If generic picture books don't hold them, a story pitched precisely to their age, with the values you care about woven in, usually does. The calibration is why it lands differently from a random library book.
Families who want a theme or value they can't find on the shelf
You won't find an "Arlo-and-the-shy-dragon-about-patience" book at Waterstones. You can generate one here. That's what "custom" actually means: any reasonable combination, on demand, tonight.
Parents reading with multiple kids
Calibration pitches to the youngest child in the household. The characters are slightly outside your actual kids, so no one feels left out or mis-cast. One story that works for all siblings listening.
Browse bedtime stories by theme
- Dragons
- Unicorns
- Princesses
- Space
- Dinosaurs
- Fairies
- Mermaids
- Pirates
- Wizards
- Superheroes
- Cats
- Dogs
- Bunnies
- Horses
- Robots
- Ninjas
- Knights
- Trains
- Farm Animals
- Cars
Frequently asked questions
What's different about "custom" vs "personalised"?
Mostly they mean the same thing for us. Some parents search "custom" to find tools; others search "personalised". Both terms land here. Behind the scenes, every Dreamtime story is fully custom-generated from your household settings - there's one product, two front doors. If you landed here looking for name-swap templates, we don't do those on either page; calibration, values-weaving, and a recurring cast are what "custom" means at Dreamtime.
Does my child appear as a character in the story?
No - and that's a deliberate choice, not a missing feature. Dreamtime writes stories for your child, not about them. Dreamtime is built for the parent who's doing the reading; your child is the audience, not the user of the app. Their first name is captured so that when you open the app at bedtime you can greet them warmly - never used inside the story text. "Custom" here means calibrated and values-woven, not name-grafted.
Is there a limit to how much I can customise?
You can customise age calibration, theme pool, values woven in, tone, story length, family context, and the recurring cast. What you can't do yet is write a full free-text prompt, so you can't get hyper-specific about plot points or insist a story features a particular object. We're keeping it simple on purpose - constraints actually make the generator work better, and the household setup gives the story everything it needs to feel personal without turning into a prompt engineer's homework.
Can I edit a story after it's generated?
Yes. Each story has a small edit panel - swap lines, shorten a paragraph, make a passage warmer. Or tap regenerate for a completely new take on the same settings if the first attempt didn't land.
Is it suitable for all ages?
Yes, for ages 2-10. You pick the age band when you set up the household, and the maker adjusts vocabulary, sentence complexity, plot depth, and word count accordingly. A 3-year-old gets a short, calming, simple-language story; a 9-year-old gets a longer adventure with real plot turns.
How long does a custom story take to generate?
About 30 seconds - faster than the time it takes them to pick pyjamas. Read tonight, without waiting.
Tonight's custom story is 30 seconds away.
Calibrated to your child. Woven with the values you picked.
Create a free story