What’s in Our Church Quiet Bag

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Our church quiet bag stays packed with a few specific activities and only comes out during Sunday services. A few books, stickers, paper, crayons, and some quiet baby toys help little hands to stay occupied and participate in worship. Here’s a look in our church quiet bag and some specific items that have given us hours of quiet time during church services with our 4 littles!

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What’s In Our Church Quiet Bag

Our church load includes a diaper bag and a church quiet bag with our four littles. The diaper bag is packed with baby essentials like diapers and wipes, a nursing cover, and my WildBird ring sling in case I need to make a quick exit to go change one of the babies or step into the nursing room.

Our “church bag” stays in the service with my husband and the big kids and has their quiet activities. 🙂

We just switched from a simple canvas tote to a slightly larger bag with a couple of pockets and a zipper. A church bag doesn’t need to be anything fancy! I’d recommend something medium-sized (too large and things fall over and get lost), and if maybe something that has a top zipper and a smaller zipper pocket for crayons and small items.

Here’s what’s in our church quiet bag!

1. Books

Too many books can be overwhelming, but a few interesting books can be helpful for flipping through. Make sure to include a couple of hardcovers for drawing on (with paper), too. We try to keep a few books for the bigs and then some interactive baby books for the younger ones. Some of our favorites are:

If you’re looking for more great books for kids, I listed a bunch of my favorites here! 50 Favorite Wholesome Children’s Books for Preschoolers & Up

2. Paper, crayons, and stickers

Our kids spend most of their time in church coloring and doing stickers. They make “sticker stacks” and love to decorate their papers. For months, our 2/3-year-old son would spend the entire service taking a small piece of paper and a crayon and “trapping” the crayon inside the paper using stickers. The things they come up with are sometimes hilarious!

Kids can go through a lot of stickers fast, and they can get expensive! We’ve found little circle label stickers from Amazon to be the best on the budget. We cut the big sheets up into halves or quarters with a paper cutter. It ends up costing ~$5 every 4-6 months.

stickers, paper, and crayons for church quiet bag

(Tip: A bag with a small zipper pocket for a few crayons is so helpful for keeping them from falling out and rolling down the sanctuary floor!)

3. Baby toys

Babies don’t need a lot of things, and they definitely don’t need noisy things. Soft toys that won’t be interruptive when they drop but that can provide something for those little minds to work on are perfect. Our bag has:

Push pop toy. Probably our most-used baby toy.
Clip-on teether tools. They can’t get thrown if they’re clipped on!
Tiny board books. Our babies have loved these tiny board block books. They just fit perfectly in their hands and keep them so entertained! I stick one of these in my back pocket to take to our co-op’s chapel when it’s just me and all the littles.
Interactive/slide and find books. I listed some of our favorites above.
Crocheted octopus. Putting this one on here because it has truly been a favorite for all of my babies! I have not succeeded at crocheting one yet, ha! This one was a gift, but if you crochet, by all means, make one!

(Depending on their age and how they’re doing, I often end up standing up or stepping out after awhile with little babies. I almost always use a ring sling, and I’ve found that giving them more structure and cuddles when they get wiggly tends to be more helpful than letting them roam free – they just want more and more freedom!

I wrote a little more on what I do with babies during church in this post: How to Take Your Kids to Church – Tips from a Mom of 4 Littles)

4. Magnetic animal tin

Little magnetic animal tins can be great for keeping little hands busy. I’ve heard of a lot of people using these for church, and a few of our kids have really enjoyed this one during services. We got ours from Studio 331.

While these are super cute, they can be a bit loud if dropped or if the lid gets loose and squeaky.

Tips for Packing a Church Quiet Bag

Don’t overdo it. In many cases, fewer choices is better. (Our bag is a little full right now, and is also split between 4 kids.) Start with a couple of books, one or two pieces of paper, and a couple of crayons. Maybe a sheet of stickers. 🙂
Keep it special for Sundays only. Keeping our church bag up on a top shelf makes the items in it more fun and special for Sunday services.
Rotate it every so often. New books every few weeks help keep their interest.
You don’t have to add snacks! We did snacks for awhile but found out that they were more distracting than anything. Mostly, small little snacks and containers would get dropped a lot and it just wasn’t worth it. Since we have a 30-minute drive, we hand out snacks in the van on the way home to help tide them over while we get home and get lunch on.