Keeping Quiet...

First of all, I have to say thank you to everyone that said just nice things after my post yesterday. Your prayers are working- I've experienced a decrease in contractions over the past day, which is saying something!

Today I'm touching on the Quiet Time boxes that we came up with for Keegan.

He turned four on April 25, and soon after started putzing during his nap time, waking his brother up (He and Bennett now share a room, but that's a different post for a different day), and it was negatively affecting everyone in our home. I tried explaining to Keegan that EVERYONE needs a little bit of quiet time during the day, including Mom and/or Dad. He wasn't buying it.

I searched a little on Pinterest for alternatives to nap time, and stumbled upon the idea of Quiet Boxes. The whole goal being that these boxes are SOLELY for quiet time, so they stay special, and you can rotate them out. I've found that keeping them exclusively for Quiet Time is the key to them doing the trick. We've used them for (almost) 4 weeks now, and he's not sick of them yet, so I'll take it!

I explained the idea to Keegan, and he conceptually had a hard time understanding it. We went to Walmart with a vague list, and ended up just perusing the aisles and throwing anything that seemed like he could be creative with into the cart.

The first thing for the Quiet Times that I bought was from Amazon. I picked up this preschool Dry Erase workbook by Leap Frog, along with some Crayola Dry Erase markers.

 Typically when I let him use this, I give him a damp Microfiber Towel to go with it so he can wipe up on his own. He LOVES this. Also, I only let him use this when he's on the dark blue cot for quiet time. I just can't say that he's mature enough to use the markers on normal sheets :)

 

We bought two Matchbox cars that are exclusive to this box. It's ONLY during quiet time, so they don't lose their novelty. Also, I bought foam sheets and cut out all sorts of shapes. He'll make patterns, stack, etc.

 

Keegan picked out this Avengers book, and the wooden car. I threw in the popsicle sticks and the mini clothes pins. Somehow he can stay creative for SO long with stuff like this.

 

 

I used the hole punch and punched holes in a number of the red plastic cups. I threw in any pipe cleaners, and Keegan picked out the buttons and the curly looking paper clips. He makes SO MUCH STUFF out of this box, and sometimes comes up with his own little games with everything.

 

 

This is Keegan's FAVORITE Quiet Box. We found the idea for sponge blocks on Pinterest before we went to Walmart and that child was on a mission to find as many stinkin' sponges as he could! He is precious, because when I show him the box, he claps his hands and pretty much shoo's me out of the room so he can play.

 

 

 This is Keegan's 2nd favorite Quiet Box. Keegan LOVES Angry Birds, so he loves to stack the cups to build towers, and then will sometimes arrange the pom-poms like the piggies and try to knock them over. So fun. Again, I just threw the left over paper clips in this box.

 

 

Currently we have a twin mattress down in the baby's nursery so that when I do go into labor, we have an available bed for my mom, or whoever can get there in the middle of the night before this baby pops out :) Normally Keegan has Quiet Time on our little blue cot (also in the nursery).

 

 

And you know, Keegan has slept EVERY SINGLE DAY since we introduced these Quiet Boxes. It's like we gave him permission to not HAVE to sleep, but now he suddenly is making the decision to sleep on his own and not because we're "making" him. I'm not sure how long this will last, and I know that soon enough he'll totally outgrow naps. But I'll take naps until Kingergarten if that's what we get :)