Printable bedtime stories and story cards
Two sheets, both free, both printable straight from this page: a bedtime routine chart a child can tick themselves, and ten story-starter cards for the nights when nobody can think of one.
There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to download. Print the sheet you want, stick it on the wall or the fridge, and let the paper do the remembering for the next few weeks.
Print the bedtime routine chart
Six steps, seven nights, and a box for each one. The point of the chart is that your child can run it without being told what comes next — which is why it holds six steps and not twelve, and why the order is the order you actually do things in, not the order you wish you did.
My bedtime routine
Name: ______________________ Tick a box each night you finish the whole step.
| Step | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Bath or wash | |||||||
| 2. Pyjamas | |||||||
| 3. Teeth | |||||||
| 4. Story | |||||||
| 5. Goodnight | |||||||
| 6. Lights out |
When every box in a row is ticked, that step is a habit — cross it off the chart and keep going with the rest.
Print the ten story-starter cards
Each card is a starting situation, not a plot. You read the prompt out loud and your child supplies what happens next, which is the part they actually want to be in charge of. The same card becomes a different story every time you draw it.
Ten bedtime story starters
Draw one, read it out, and let them finish it.
Card 1
The Very Slow Race
Everyone lines up for a race, and the rule is that the slowest one wins. Who finds the cleverest way to dawdle?
Card 2
The Lost Sock
One sock is missing from the laundry basket. Where has it been all day, and who did it meet?
Card 3
The Moon's Lost Button
The moon has lost a button from its coat. Somebody small finds it. What do they do next?
Card 4
The Cloud Who Couldn't Rain
A little cloud practises raining over the garden and nothing comes out — until it stops trying so hard.
Card 5
The Sleepy Lighthouse
The lighthouse keeps nodding off. The boats need it awake for one more night. Who stays up with it?
Card 6
The Bear Who Counted Stars
A bear decides to count every star in the sky. Somewhere around forty, something else happens instead.
Card 7
The Noisy Teapot
The teapot whistles at exactly the wrong moment every single evening. Can anyone teach it to wait?
Card 8
The Borrowed Blanket
Someone borrows a blanket without asking. Saying sorry turns out to be the easy part.
Card 9
The Door That Wouldn't Close
One door in the house refuses to shut. Nobody can see what is keeping it open.
Card 10
The Garden That Grew at Night
Every morning there is something new outside the window, and nobody planted it.
Why paper still earns its place at bedtime
A printed sheet is visible from the bed, needs no unlocking, and does not light up. That matters more at bedtime than it sounds: the reason a routine drifts is almost never that nobody knows the steps — it is that the steps live in an adult's head, and an adult at 7:30pm is exactly the person least able to hold six of them in order.
Paper also fails quietly. If the chart gets lost, ignored or scribbled on, nothing breaks — you print another one. A screen that becomes the routine, on the other hand, has to be handed over and taken back every single night, and that negotiation is its own bedtime problem. If screens are already part of your evenings, the guide on screen time before bed covers where the line usually goes.
What paper cannot do is tell the story. The illustrations are half of a picture book, and a home printout turns them into a grey smudge — so use the sheets for the parts a child can hold and tick, and read the actual stories from a book or from the app.
Getting the most out of the two sheets
- Introduce the chart in daylight. A new chart explained at bedtime is a change to bedtime, and changes to bedtime get resisted. Show it after breakfast, hang it where they can reach it, and let them tick the first box themselves.
- Cut the cards out and keep them in a jar. Drawing one is the fun part, and drawing one is also a decision the child gets to make instead of you — which removes the most common stall in the whole routine.
- Keep the last two steps sacred. Whatever gets dropped on a bad night, goodnight and lights out should not be. The ending is what closes the day; see the guide on goodnight rituals.
- Reprint rather than repair. A crumpled, half-ticked, three-week-old chart is worse than a fresh one. The sheet is disposable by design.
Related hubs & guides
Printable bedtime stories FAQ
Are these printables actually free?+
Yes. Both sheets — the routine chart and the ten story-starter cards — print straight from this page. There is no download gate, no email address to enter, and no account. Print them once, or print a fresh copy every time the last one goes missing.
What size paper do they print on?+
They are laid out to work on A4 and on US Letter. Print in portrait at 100% scale with margins set to default — shrinking to fit will make the chart's tick boxes too small for a child to use. Black and white is fine; nothing on either sheet depends on colour.
Should I print the stories themselves?+
MoonPage's stories are illustrated picture books, so a plain printout loses the half of the story the pictures carry. Print the prompts and the chart, and read the stories from the app or a book — the paper is for the parts a child can hold, point at and tick.
The printable chart stopped working after a few weeks. Why?+
That is the normal life cycle rather than a failure. A chart earns its place while it is doing the remembering for you; once the order is habit, the sheet is decoration and the ticks start to feel like a test. When that happens, retire it instead of adding stickers.
Paper for the routine, stories for the reading
MoonPage holds original illustrated bedtime stories for ages 2+ — narrated or in your own voice, offline, no ads and no login. Free to start tonight.