Quiet Time Boxes
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Does your child still take a nap? If so, that is awesome! I hope you are blessed with many more days like that. My oldest used to take great naps, but lately he started cutting them out. He just lays in bed and is very restless or goes to the bathroom 15 times. Nap time wasn’t working, so I decided to try something new with him — Quiet Time Boxes.
Since I believe rest time for little ones is so important, I still make him lay in his bed for about an hour. If he falls asleep, that is great! It means he really needed a nap! If not, then I let him play independently with his quiet time box of the day. I’ve seen quiet time boxes on Pinterest and other blogs, but had never made one for my kids. It turns out, they are really simple to make. I got 5 clear storage boxes from Target and put 4-6 items that my child can play with independently inside each box. These are items that are special and are only played with during quiet box time. I have one for every day of the week. After a while, I will switch out the items. For now, he is loving this time and does a great job doing the activities independently and not interrupting mommy. (This is great for me, since this is when I get my work done around the house and on the blog!) I put special items in each box, some are new and some are activities we already have. You do not have to go out and buy a ton of materials, you can use what you have! Or the Dollar Store always has items that are fun to put in these quiet time boxes.
Here is what I put in each box:
1. Foal to Horse book (I like to rotate different books for him to look at.)
2. Avengers Activity Coloring Book and washable markers (from Target)
3. Different Shaped Links to hook together or make patterns (from Dollar Tree)
4. Fun With Mazes Wipe-Off Book 
and dry erase marker
5. Melissa & Doug Joey Magnetic Dress-Up
1. Making Shapes with Monkey Book
2. Noah and the Ark
3. Do-a-Dot marker and coloring sheets
4. Sticker Activity Pad (from Hobby Lobby)
5. Melissa & Doug Magnetic Farm Hide and Seek
1. Connect the Dots Workbook (from Hobby Lobby)
3. Planes Activity Coloring Book (from Target)
4. Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Pets
5. Melissa & Doug Magnetic Towing Game
6. Small containers of play dough (he plays with it on the lid of the box)
1. Discovery Toys Lacing Set (could not find it online anywhere–sorry!)
2. Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center Travel
3. Slime (from Target–he plays with this on the lid of the tub. And it is not sticky slime–just a fun sensory activity!)
4. Melissa & Doug Water Wow Coloring Book – Vehicles
5. Melissa & Doug Jigsaw Puzzle
1. Tangrams (from Dollar Tree)
2. Crayola Spiderman Color Wonder Book
(also at Target)
3. Putty (from Dollar Tree)
5. Lined Dry Erase Board and marker (from Target)
6. Stomp! (a fun dinosaur book)
Another thing we do is have our kids listen to stories during rest time. He loves these stories and they are great, classic stories for children. I just put them on my iPad and let them play. There are 25 stories making it 237 minutes! I got mine on iTunes, but you can also get it here —> Kids Bedtime Stories
Also, if you want the labels I used for our quiet boxes, you can download them here —> Quiet Box Labels
If you need more quiet box ideas, check out this post with 75 more ideas (and a lot of them are free!)!
What do you do for rest time at your house?
What do you do on Saturday & Sunday?
Also, does he play in the floor or on the bed? Your picture shows floor but the blog says bed…
How old was your son when this started to work for him?
Have you had any problems with markers or paydough/slime getting messy in his bed/room?
We desperately need something to help my son rest. He’s three but hates being alone so much he tears up his room when we tried having him stay in there for “rest time” which became less of a break for me!
Great idea, thank you, I’ll be trying this with my boys. The first 10 minutes when I put baby to bed is make or break, If you wake him in that 10 mins it’s very difficult to settle him again, after that I could go into the room and even tidy up and he won’t wake. Thank you for the labels too.
Thanks a nice idea. I once made ‘busy bags’ for Littles to use during school time with the older children. Currently we have rest time for everyone after lunch. The boys are old enough to have white time in their room, reading, listening to music or audio books, and I have 3 girls sharing a room. I put miss nearly 2 to sleep, and her older sisters 4 and 6 get into bed for a ‘mini rest time’. They get in to bed, miss 6 is very happy on her bed with bits and bobs from her book case and little toys she carries around in her hand bag. Miss 4 normally really likes to lie in bed with toys. We take around half an hr resting like that then I take the older 2 girls downstairs for some special time together playing a game, drawing or making something. The boys are usually very happy for an hour or so and are old enough now to have a daytime nap if they need one and if they want to (they are 8,10,12 and sleep is back in fashion!).
These are great quiet time suggestions! I make my twins (who are 5) have quiet time in their separate bedrooms because I still have a 2yr old who sleeps and the twins just need a little down time apart from each other. Love the boxes idea! Will definitely try making a few (although making 10 boxes might be a stretch!!) 🙂
You wouldn’t really have to make 10. You could still do five and each twin would just use a different box. So on Monday they’d use Monday and Tuesday’s boxes. Then the kid that had Monday would get the Tuesday box and the other one would get Wednesday. They’d still rotate through each week. 🙂
This is a great idea. BUT! still a lot of work in terms of assembling stuff in 7 boxes! (at least for me!) Im sure u need to change the items every month or so!
Also I was curious- how old was your oldest when you made these?
swapna recently posted…DIY Cardboard Castle: With Your 3 Yr Old (& Related Usborne & Brown Watson Books)
It is work in the beginning, but honestly it’s not hard to switch out material. I think it’s 100% worth it! My oldest was 4 when I first started using these. Hope that helps!
This is such a GREAT idea! …especially since I’m a blogging momma too!
Thank you so much for sharing! 😉
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These are great! I’m definitely going to be make some quiet boxes for my toddler by the time summer rolls around. He’ll nap, but he also spends part of naptime playing in his bed!
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wow, this is such a great collection! My 3y.o. still naps most days, but I need to be prepared soon for the day he will stop. I like this idea of having one box for each day, with special items only to be played with in quiet time. And the items you’ve included in each box are great! A good range. How long does your boy normally play happily with this for?
What an awesome idea! My 3.5 year old od starting to get out of nap times and I have been wondering how id cope with her not napping, my 2.yr old napping and my 6 month ild too. Where did u find noah and the ark?
This is a great idea! I’m suggesting a basket version of this and linking to your post here for an upcoming post of my own. I hope you see some new visitors!
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