As a business owner and mother to two young children, it’s hard to find time during what the world deems “normal business hours” to devote to working without a Nanny. Every day, we do something called quiet time. My 9 month old naps just fine, so she is easy to manage, but my 3 year old doesn’t want to be without me. So, we have quiet time. I’m sure to most mom’s, quiet time is something they could only dream of getting, but it takes a lot of practice and patience to finally get your toddler to entertain themselves during quiet time.
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I took to pinterest and found quiet time boxes for each day of the week and sort of came up with my own box ideas. Each day for quiet time, Carly gets a box. From the time she wakes up until quiet time, I frequently mention the box and hype it up to her so she gets excited about it and excited about quiet time. I’ll put some suggestions below on what to fill the boxes with, but so far, it’s going well. I even grab a different stuffed animal every day and tell her she can share quiet time with the stuffed animal so she “gets to know” her stuffed animal during quiet time and they can spend time doing those activities together. It buys me about 2 hours in the afternoon to do things that I need to get done, whether work related, working out then showering, cleaning, etc. What kind of things do you do with your toddlers to keep them entertained so you can get some work in? Here’s a picture of Carly dancing with one of the castles. And yes, I know my house is messy… and yes, I know my iPhone pictures aren’t the best. 🙂
- printable coloring sheet (just google it with your toddler and find one your toddler likes)
- crayons
- book to look at/read (depending on their age and reading level)
- sticker book
- abc flash cards
- 123 flash cards
- flash cards of any kind (like objects or animals)
- stuffed animal
- construction paper and tape
- construction paper and a whole punch of something fun (you can get these at the craft store in the scrapbooking section. We like to use a punch that punches out elephants!)
- a notepad and a fancy pen to practice writing
- either a new toy or toy they “forgot” about that hasn’t been played with in awhile
- dress up (you can do this with boys too! do super hero dress up!)
- grocery shopping – if you have a kids cart (which most kids want at some point), fill it with groceries they can’t easily open or fake groceries and let them play in their room.
- organizing baskets with pom poms where they separate out the colors into different baskets
- build a fort that they can play in during quiet time to do these activities
- coloring book
- silly buddy (if they’re old enough to not get it stuck in your carpet)
- magnets to play with on a cookie sheet
- trace and lace panels (check out Melissa and Doug)
- laundry (let them learn or try to fold laundry… it likely won’t go well, but it keeps them occupied!)
- yoga mat as a play mat (for some reason, my toddler is obsessed with my yoga mat, so I got her a cheap one of her own from Ross)
- blocks or legos
- etch a sketch
- light bright
- chalkboard
- play kitchen (even if you don’t have a kids kitchen, get out some spatulas, ladles, spoons, pots, pans, large bowls, etc and let them play with those)
- have an extra Amazon box waiting to go into the recycling bin or trash can? Let your kids color it during quiet time. Is it a large box? Cut a panel or two off so they can sit inside and color the walls of it.
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