Keeping Kids Quiet

There are all kinds of quiet book tutorials out there, but I think the key is to make it personal and economical by using what you have on hand and what your unique children are interested in.

My favorite page in our quiet book is the family tree page.  It's important to me that my kids have lots of pictures of their grandparents since we do not live close to them.  So I cut a tree out of felt, sewed some sparkly leaves onto it and then sewed on some sticky velcro dots where I wanted my pictures to go.

Next I cut out the faces of my kids, my husband and me as well as the grandparents in the shape of apples and laminated them in sets.

We have been using this quiet book for about 3 years, and I just now thought to share this, so it's well used (read: bent up and beat up), but you get the idea.

My quiet book has fabric pages with an activity on each side and a ribbon tab on each page for turning pages and for babies to play with.  Maybe not as practical as the removable pages idea on 3 rings, but softer.

Here are some other pages:

Telling time and Noah's ark.  Tucked inside the boat are animal beads on a string (in pairs of course).  The fish also slide back and forth in the water on the ribbons.

This one is missing the crocheted flower petals (similar to this link) that go over the buttons.  It was a fun idea, but they eventually got lost.  The treasure box on the right can hide snacks or anything you want.  The kids love unlocking the lock, which is just an old luggage lock with the key sewn onto a string so we won't lose it.

I love the weaving idea, but I wanted mine to look like a cherry pie.  It's maybe a little too complex for toddlers.  I'd do fewer strips if I were to redo this page.  The left page I was just using left-over alphabet charms that I had an abundance of to help them learn their letters and how to spell their names.

Another idea for Quiet books is to put a small photo album in your diaper bag with pictures of family and friends.  Kids love looking at pictures of themselves and people they know, so it's an easy thing to carry around without having to relinquish your phone for kids to look at pictures with when you need them to sit still.

I have also taken advantage of free photo book offers from various websites and uploaded pictures I thought my kids would enjoy to use as a quiet book.  You still have to pay shipping on the free books, but for a while there were some really cheap options for paperback 20 page books.  Inexpensive to ship and not heavy to weigh down a diaper bag.  They're also not very durable, but they definitely serve their purpose well.

Another great solution for church is to laminate pictures of Jesus and put them together on a ring so they don't get lost.

Personally, I feel that it is important for kids to learn how to sit still without an electronic device to entertain them.  While there is definitely a time and a purpose for apps and computer games, I feel like some important things, like patience and imagination for example, are learned when such toys are not constantly available to children.