Bedtime Stories for 3 Year Olds

Good bedtime stories for 3 year olds are short, simple and full of words a child can say along with you. At three, most children can follow one main character and one friend, and they love hearing the same lines again and again. That is not boredom: hearing the same story more than once is one of the ways young children learn new words.

Three is also when fears of the dark, of strange noises and of monsters start to grow, because the line between pretend and real is still blurry. So our stories for this age never bring in anything frightening, and when a worry appears, it is gently settled before the end.

Start with Goodnight, Little Fox, a three-minute walk home in which your child can whisper goodnight to the stone, the stream, the ferns and the moon. The Little Dinosaur’s Big Yawn follows one tiny yawn as it hops from friend to friend across a sleepy valley. The Sleepy Puppy’s First Night helps with the creaks and hums of a dark house: a boy named Sam shows Biscuit how to listen for a heartbeat.

For more quick reads, see our short bedtime stories, or move up to our bedtime stories for 4 year olds.