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The only bedtime story in the world written entirely for your child.

Written by a clinical hypnotherapist. Built around your child's name, their favourite things, and the one thing you'd most like to gently help with right now. A story that knows their name - and knows them.

Australian Hypnotherapists Association
College of Medicine
GOAH
HCA
on Google
ISPA

This isn't a bedtime story. It's their bedtime story.

Most bedtime stories are written for every child at once. A narrator. A tale. A child listening along with every other child who has ever held that same book. Once Upon Them is something else entirely. Your child's story contains their name - spoken aloud, throughout. Their hero is the kind they love most. Their companion animal is the one they would choose. Their real interests, their favourite things, and the quality you most want them to carry into sleep - all woven through every word, from the very first line to the last. And beneath the adventure, something quieter is happening. Every story is written using the hero's journey - the oldest and most powerful story structure in human history, and the same framework used in clinical therapeutic storytelling. The hero faces a challenge that mirrors something real in your child's world. And in overcoming it, they discover something they already had inside them all along. Your child doesn't experience therapy. They experience their story. And the story does the rest.

It knows your child

Their name, their hero, their companion animal, their favourite things - woven through every word. Not a template with a name dropped in. A story conceived, from the very first line, around who your child actually is.

It does more than entertain

You tell us the one thing you'd most like the story to gently help with - managing worries, feeling brave, making friends, coping with change, falling asleep easily, or something else. The hero faces exactly that challenge, and discovers they have exactly what it takes. Your child experiences an adventure. The story does the rest.

It sounds like it was made for them - because it was

Professional audio narration pairs with read-along highlighted text, so your child can listen and follow the words at the same time. Every night, the same familiar story - warm, trusted, and completely theirs.

For little dreamers, big dreamers, and the one child whose story has never been told - until now.

Four steps to the story they'll ask for every night

  1. 1

    Choose their adventure

    Pick a single complete story or the full four-part Story Journey. Both begin with the same thing - the most detailed bedtime story intake form you have ever seen. Every question matters, because every answer becomes part of the story.

  2. 2

    Tell us about your child

    Their name. Their hero. Their favourite animal. Their best friend. What they are proud of. And the one thing you would most like the story to gently help with - bravery, calm, friendship, confidence, sleep, or something else entirely. The more you share, the richer the story becomes.

  3. 3

    We write it - just for them

    A clinical hypnotherapist crafts your child's story from everything you have shared. Their real world becomes the ordinary world. Their real strengths become the hero's gift. Their challenge becomes the ordeal - and the resolution is shaped to leave them calm, safe, and ready for sleep.

  4. 4

    Press play tonight

    Your child's story and audio arrive in your inbox. Settle in together, press play, and watch what happens when a child hears a story that knows their name - and knows them.

Two ways to give your child a story that is completely theirs

Once Upon Them - Single

$29

One complete adventure. Entirely theirs. Ready for tonight.

One story, written from scratch, for your child alone. From the hero's name to the companion they'd choose - every detail is theirs, and theirs only. A complete hero's journey, beginning to end, in a single sitting.

  • ✓One complete personalised story - 10 to 15 minutes
  • ✓A full hero's journey arc written just for your child
  • ✓Your child's name, hero, companion animal, and world woven throughout
  • ✓Gently addresses the one therapeutic focus you choose
  • ✓Professional audio narration included
  • ✓Read-along highlighted text included
  • ✓Delivered to your inbox within 48 hours
  • ✓Yours to keep and replay as many times as they like

The perfect way to experience Once Upon Them before committing to the full journey - and most parents tell us their child asks for it again the very next night.

Most Chosen

Once Upon Them - Journey

$97

Four connected stories. One growing hero. The complete journey.

From a single form submission, a clinical hypnotherapist writes all four parts of your child's hero's journey - each story building on the last, the same hero growing deeper with every chapter. This is the complete arc. The full experience. The one your child will talk about.

  • Part 1 — The Call: Your child's hero is introduced to their world - familiar, warm, and built from the details only your child would recognise. Then something stirs. Something is needed. The adventure begins.
  • Part 2 — The Trials: The hero ventures further. The world grows bigger. New companions arrive. New strengths are discovered - strengths that were always there, waiting to be found.
  • Part 3 — The Ordeal: The greatest challenge yet. The moment that feels impossible. And the most powerful story of the four - the one where something real shifts for the hero, and for the child listening.
  • Part 4 — The Return: The hero comes home - changed, whole, and carrying something they will keep forever. The resolution your child has been building toward, across four nights of listening.
  • ✓Four complete personalised stories - 10 to 15 minutes each
  • ✓A single connected hero's journey arc across all four parts
  • ✓Written from one form submission - no repetition required
  • ✓The same hero grows and changes across every chapter
  • ✓Each part ends leaving your child wanting to know what comes next
  • ✓Choose to receive all four at once, or one per week over four weeks
  • ✓Professional audio narration for every part
  • ✓Read-along highlighted text for every part
  • ✓Delivered to your inbox
  • ✓Yours to keep and replay as many times as they like

This is the experience that turns bedtime into something your child looks forward to every single night - and something you look forward to together.

Written by a clinical hypnotherapist. Not a content team. Not AI. A clinician.

Headshot of Paul Smith

Paul Smith

Dip.Clin.Hyp. Dip.Psych.Th.

Specialises in:

AnxietyFears and phobiasEmotional regulationOCDConfidenceSleep-related concerns
Paul has spent over six years in clinical practice helping children and adults work through anxiety, fear, sleep difficulties, OCD, and the kind of emotional turbulence that is hard to put into words. He understands what children carry quietly into sleep, the worries that seem small in daylight and grow in the dark, and he has spent his career developing the language to meet them there. Every story Paul writes draws on the same clinical methodology he uses with clients: the hero's journey mapped to the child's real experience, the resolution calibrated to what they most need to feel as they drift off. He writes not to entertain, but to help, and in his hands, the two are the same thing.

Learn more about Paul

Headshot of Rebecca Smith

Rebecca Smith

Dip.Clin.Hyp. Couns.

Specialises in:

Children's emotional wellbeingConfidenceSelf-esteemSleepResilienceIdentity
Rebecca's practice is built around children's emotional wellbeing, confidence, self-esteem, resilience, sleep, and the quieter struggles that don't always have easy words. She has a particular gift for meeting children exactly where they are, without rushing them to a place they're not yet ready to go. Her stories carry that same patience. She knows that a child who feels truly seen, whose name, whose hero, whose world appears in the story, listens differently. And a child who listens differently is a child who, more often than not, wakes up carrying something new.

Learn more about Rebecca

Written by a clinical hypnotherapist. Not a content team. Not AI. A clinician.

Every Once Upon Them story is created by Paul Smith or Rebecca Smith - clinical hypnotherapists at Norwest Wellbeing, with over 20 years of combined practice working with anxiety, sleep, confidence, emotional regulation, and wellbeing in both children and adults. Every story is built on the hero's journey framework - the same narrative structure that has been used in therapeutic storytelling for decades - with techniques including metaphor, embedded suggestion, future pacing, and resourcing woven invisibly into the adventure. The hero's challenge mirrors what your child is quietly facing. The hero's gift is what your child already has. And the resolution is crafted to leave your child in a calm, safe, and positive state as sleep arrives. Your child doesn't experience therapy. They experience their story. And the story does the rest.

“The hero's challenge mirrors what your child is facing. The hero's gift is what your child already has. The resolution is what you want them to carry into sleep.”

— Paul Smith, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Norwest Wellbeing

Why parents trust Norwest Wellbeing with their child's story

Written by a clinician. Every single time.

These stories are not entertainment with a therapeutic label. They are written using genuine clinical hypnotherapy methodology - the hero's journey is mapped directly to your child's challenge, the language is calibrated to their age, and every ending is shaped to leave them in a calm, positive state as sleep arrives.

Private, safe, and written for your child only.

Everything you share stays completely private. Your child's story is written for them and them alone - never stored in a library, never reused, and never shared with another family. Once it is written, it belongs entirely to your child.

Designed for children aged 4 to 11.

Language, story length, pacing, and complexity are all calibrated to your child's age and reading engagement level. A story written for a five-year-old sounds and reads completely differently to one written for an eleven-year-old - and both are exactly right for the child they were written for.

No subscription. No library. No generic anything.

Once Upon Them is a commissioned piece of personalised therapeutic storytelling. You are not signing up for an app. You are not browsing a catalogue. You are asking for one story - or four - to be written from scratch, for one child, who deserves to hear a story that knows who they are.

What parents are saying

“My son went completely silent when he heard his own name in the story, then looked at me with the biggest smile. We've listened to his personalised adventure every single night for three weeks now, and it's become the highlight of our bedtime routine. I honestly can't believe how much calmer he's become at bedtime since we started.”

Mother of Oliver, age 6 - Once Upon Them

Your questions, answered

Loved the story? Give their hero a full adventure.

The Story Journey takes your child's hero through all four stages of the hero's journey - The Call, The Trials, The Ordeal, and The Return. The same hero. A growing world. A resolution four chapters in the making. And four weeks of bedtime your child will look forward to from the moment the lights go down.

Their story is waiting. It just hasn't been written yet.

Every hero's journey begins with a single step. Choose a single complete adventure tonight - or give your child's hero the full four-part journey they deserve. Either way, what we write will belong to your child, and your child alone. No other family will ever hear it. No other child in the world will ever have it.

One form. One child. A story no one else will ever hear.