Imaginary friends - 4 yo DD

[BabyGiraffes]

Is it normal for a four year old to spend quite a bit of time talking to her two imaginary friends? One of them has been around for at least two years; the second about a year, and the other day a third popped in to play... . She will have arguments with one of them (to the extend that I once told her to please just leave x alone! ) and has long conversations where she will leave a gap for her imaginary friend to 'answer', just like a real conversation.
Does anyone have experience of this? Looking for reassurance here so please feel free to tell me it's a sign of intelligence/great imagination etc and not a sign of her being a little mad

My DD initially had one main imaginary friend, a boy called Teagan, who she talked about all the time. Her nursery teacher included Teagan in things and we just treated it as perfectly normal. She used to write cards for him and write about him in her weekend news book.

At the end of nursery I hadn't heard her mention him for a while and she said 'oh, he's dead now, he was 100 years old'

She also had two imaginary brothers Gino and Olly (Gino D'campo and Olly Murs). God knows what her nursery teacher must have thought of us!

We just went with it, and didn't worry about it. DD does have a great imagination and if I were you I wouldn't worry about it.

roomonthebroom thanks, you dd sounds a lot like mine

My dd had 3 imaginary friends when she was 3 and 4 years old. The first was called Dee-Dum who had a car/van and used to take us home when I was struggling with shopping
I can't remember what the second one was called (something equally as ridiculous as Dee-Dum), but the third was Barbie. Barbie had a pink car with flowers on.
It was only ever a problem when she wanted me to have a conversation with them and I wasn't sure where they were or what they were saying!
She used to chat to them a lot, but it stopped when she started school.
She's 8 years old now and has a brilliant imagination and is very creative. She still talks to her toys/dolls and makes stories up about them.

monoid There's hope then with dd starting school in September . Must admit I find it all very strange because I was a very different child to her (tomboy, not into dolls, dressing up etc. Refused to wear dresses/skirts - dd is the opposite, everything pink, refuses to wear trousers and lives in dresses, has tantrums in the morning because she just has nothing right to wear ....)

Tigerlilly thanks! I am not spooked at all . I should have thought of this myself and it certainly is something I will look into more. How exciting!I am convinced children are much more in tune with things like that.

Ahh bless ya! I was really worried that those sort of suggestions may offend but just felt I had to say!! I was very prepared for a 's*d off!'. :)

My lo is very similar (at 20 months), only the people he talks to, we knew once upon a time so that convinced me....

My DD has 2 imaginary friends.

They have drawn on our walls, often hurt DD and they fall out. There have been refusals to apologise for bad behaviour (like wall drawing) because it wasn't me it was X Imaginary Friend. I have to do their seat belts whenever we go anyway and have often had to apologise for sitting on one or the other.

Sometimes I think I'd like to take the animal one out into the garden and fire a shot gun at it! But couldn't quite do that to DD (we'd probably have to have a funeral, get the vicar round and all wear black for a year anyway so not worth my trouble even if I could!)

Senorita

I have a just 3 year old who has had imaginery friends for almost a year. They are called Charlotte and Talia (they are real friends but we only really see them about once a year) the imaginery versions go everywhere with us for a few days at a time, then get forgotten and then suddenly reappear one day. They eat meals with us, i have to put them in dressing up clothes etc (odd as i have to pretend/mime!) Often DD will tell them off, they go on the naughty step and she talks them in a way which mimics us when we discipline her. Sometimes she will blame them if she has done something she shouldn't or moves her toys out of their reach in case they break them.

It's odd and can be confusing, like when she plays with them when other real children are there to play with! But we just go along with it and assume she'll grow out of it. I quite like watching her imagination work, even is she does sometimes seem a bit crazy.

I sometimes wonder if she acts out her concerns about having a new sister - she has been quite jealous? Or if she just likes having friends she can boss about completely? Overall though i think it's just a phase and i expect it'll pass.

I used to have imaginary friends - actually they were a whole nationality/species but I was particular friends with one or two of them. I can still just about remember what they looked like. I was about 3 or 4, at nursery school at the time and grew out of it. Not sure I ever really thought they were real.

I like to think it means I'm a very imaginary and creative person but perhaps I'm just loopy