To wish dh had never invented "story from your head"

[pilkers]

Dd is 2.5, a while back she went through a phase of playing up at bedtime and to settle her dh would go back in and tell her a "story from his head", she loved this for some reason and now it's become part of her bedtime routine, oh AND she wants one for her nap. I'm totally shit at them and start panicking when I'm reading her book cos I know "story from my head" is coming up. What will it be this time? Another classic about finding a lost cat and taking it back to its owner? That crap one about the fairies that rambled on too long? That frankly shit one about baking a cake?

Agh. I love reading her bedtime story but I long for the day I put her in her cot and she doesn't ask me sweetly for "story from your head now?".

Is this a tradition in anyone else's household? Do you struggle for inspiration or am I just an unimaginative old bag?

AIBU to wish dh had never started the whole bloody tradition?

He has recently implemented a mini author's question and answer session after each story ('So where exactly were these mountains?' Where in the North?'

Oh god I can so imagine this being the next escalation for us

Try

"Well this is a story all about how my life got flipped and turned upside down"

Get yourself a set of story cubes - really helps to know you have to include a sheep, a plane, and a bus in your story! Honest, it does....
www.storycubes.com/shop/rory-s-story-cubes

An ingredient story 😊 they have to provide the character, place and object, and that sets you going. Until they get crafty.

Ah this has made me all nostalgic for about 20 years ago when DD was about that age.
At one point I invented a witch called Edna and DD loved those stories and we managed to spin out that theme for years. Sometimes she would request the same one again so I gradually added more detail.
Can you tell her something rom your own childhood? Aka "the olden days" I used to love it when my mum did that

Can you tell her true stories from your own childhood or something?

DS always enjoyed that. He even enjoys the story of when I went into labour with him because that story involves a lot of me shouting at DH and he thinks it's funny.

Other highlights are the week I spent at a toad sanctuary in France and couldn't sleep because of toad noises (yuurrr-ERRRRP, yuurrr-ERRRRP, all night), the time I almost killed Grandma with a boiled egg, the dog who knocked out my tooth, the time my cousin put a plastic pig in my Fisher Price Tree House and knackered the lift (I'm still not over it), and the time the girl down the street said "Watch this!" and went to jump over a puddle but ended up sitting down in the middle of it and getting her bum wet.

Mine used to ask for stories about when I was a child. My memory is terrible and my life was fairly uneventful. I used to drone on about minor domestic details then it would all peter out in a pathetic non- conclusion. I would be cringing at my lack of storytelling talent and hoping I wasn't being secretly recorded for an embarrassing TV programme.....
Then I had to read and reread night after night after night for MONTHS, the step by step manual for playing all the levels of the Lego Star Wars xbox game.
I don't know which phase was worse...

Could you record a few in advance on your phone for her, or even record a few prompts for yourself over several different plotlines, so you don't start waffling halfway through.

Never be afraid to resort to "He woke up. It was all a dream. Night night!" when you've tied yourself in knots and have no idea how to rescue Davy and Dora from The Bears.

We did this with DD1 and now DD2. We mostly make it about DD's toy.

Honestly, it can be very low key - going to the park, making a cake, doing some painting. We often just rehash the day eg if we've had a big day gardening or had a BBQ.

We often use it to foreshadow things as well. Things like going on holiday on an aeroplane, her sister's birthday, a room change at nursery, a visit to the dentist - it helps her prepare

I've been doing this for about the past 6 years now & some nights it's hard.
My son is almost 8.
Before that, it was fine for stories to be from books, but then I stupidly did one because I'd forgotten to get the book & that was the end of reading a bedtime story.

Tonight a zombie & a duck fell out when the zombie declared himself emperor of the airing cupboard.

For me, the worst bit is that I stupidly gave each of the characters not only a voice, but their own song.

Of course. It's what daddy's do!
Ours involved tubby custard every time and random hot air balloons if I remember correctly and always starred the kids in heroic roles.

I'm getting lots of inspiration here! Stories from my childhood is a nice idea. You're right that she doesn't seem to mind what i waffle on about really.

to be fair at 2 and a half shes not going to care if the.story is a bit crap or rambley but yes children do often love hearing about parent's childhood ds1 loves hearing about mine and dh school days and about my grandparents etc they all died before he was born when they were doing world war two at school he loved hearing that his own Grandma had a Micky Mouse Gas mask .

Ohh, I love improv bedtime stories for toddlers! Here are some of my favourites:

Once upon a time there was a small man with hairy feet who had to take a ring to a volcano...

Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived with his aunt and uncle, then he went to wizard school...

Once upon a time a man and his family went to take care of the Overlook Hotel for the winter....

My DH used to do this. In fact he wrote them several books which were/are really good but he refuses to send to a publisher. I never had the imagination - love books & reading but can't make up stories.

I think if I were called on to do it now I would rip off Blyton's Faraway Tree/Wishing Chair stories with the child as the star going off on adventures to different lands every night.

One of the boys' favourites (not one for publication!) was Peter the Pirate Poo. His mildly scatalogical adventures went on for some time, to much hilarity.

DH was always raising the bar with his bedtime tales, we are talking guitars and maracas. I could not hope to compete!

Strangely DD also used to enjoy my DMum reciting long obscure Catholic prayers to her, she can still remember the "Hail Holy Queen" even though she has been an atheist for about 10years!!

My mom used to tell us stories about a builder who made houses out of chocolate and sweets ! I made one up about a man called Mr Noodle who used to float around in a bubble !!! ... so he could do high up jobs like cleaning windows ...!!! Keep the thread going and we will think up stuff for you ! Xx

I would go with all the basic fairy tales but change the names to people she knows.. You can also mix and match the stories so,that Cinderella visits the three bears, which is a great favourite in our house. Especially when the bears try to put on the glass slipper.

O God. I made your DH's mistake when my DC1 was a toddler. I paid for it, in spades. I didn't make the same mistake with the others.

This reminds me of poor Katy in What Katy Did Next, forced to tell story after story about "Violet and Emma" to the child she is looking after: "Now Violet and Emma, if the truth is to be told, had grown to be the bane of Katy's existence. She had rung the changes on their uneventful adventures, and racked her brains to invent more and more details, till her imagination felt like a dry sponge from which every possible drop of moisture had been squeezed....she had grown to hate Violet and Emma with a deadly hatred."

So she kills them off: " "Violet and Emma were dead, the pony was dead, the things in the basket were broken all to little bits, and a great snowstorm began and covered them up, and no one knew where they were or what had become of them till the snow melted in the spring."

With a loud shriek Amy jumped up from the bench. "No! no! no!" she cried; "they aren't dead! I won't let them be dead!" Then she burst into tears, ran down the stairs, locked herself into her mother's stateroom, and did not appear again for several hours."

Ds went through that phase. Usually about his soft toys. I entitled it "the story in which nothing ever happens".
They went to bed, got up, ate breakfast went to the park...
However carefully I made it boring he was enthralled.

I have some very special stories in my head, and some lovely books which show the words and pictures in my head, that some lovely people have written down for us...

A 2yo has got to fall for that, no? Particularly if they can’t read yet.

My Dad used to do this, I loved it, I still wish he’d written down ‘Goldie bear and the three locks’.

I used to like putting people I hated in them. Gordon Ramsay was the regular baddie in the epic saga of the wolf and witch who lived in a cake shop in the woods. He was always trying to put them out of business by nefarious means and always failed ha ha ha.
It entertained both of us.