Blanket time

We just finished teaching Jaelyn how to do blanket time and I wish we would have done it earier.  It has made school time, game time with Eben, story time and prayer time so much better.   Before blanket time these times would be stressful for all of us.  Jaelyn  would be her exploriative self and be climbing onto everything, getting into everything and making these times not very fun for us.  So we started blanket time; a thing we first heard about when I read 20 and counting by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar.   What you do is lay out a blanket (this is her special blanket) and on the blanket you can add 1-3 different toys.  She likes her duck and a book at night and in the morning while I do school work with Eben she gets blocks to build towers with along with Duckie. 

I simply tell Jaelyn in a very excited voice that its blanket time as I lay out the blanket for her.  Then she gets on and starts playing.  She usually will last in the morning for 20-30 minutes and in the evening its long even to read Eben a bed time story and pray together.  When you are first teaching them to stay on the blanket you keep telling them every minute or so that they are doing a great job having blanket time.   I also stayed close to her during the first week.  Now I can leave her in the living room while I give Eben school instructions and she is fine to play and entertain herself.

We even hauled out the blanket this weekend when we had guest for both her and Eben to sit on to read while Micah and I had adult conversation with our guest.  It took a little while for Jaelyn to stay on her blanket with other people here but eventually she did it and we were able to sit and chat for 20 minutes or so.

Another friend of mine has started blanket time and posted these resources if you would like to read more on it.

Whats on the blanket
Blanket time video