A warm, evidence-led guide to carrying toddlers through formal celebrations with finger games, a well-packed bag and the quiet power of traditional play.
The single most reliable thing you can do is prepare a small, varied kit before you leave the house: two or three compact, open-ended objects, one familiar finger rhyme, and a clear plan for stepping outside the moment the atmosphere tips. That is genuinely it. Research into child-directed play consistently shows that toddlers do not need elaborate entertainment; they need a trusted adult and something they can manipulate with their hands. The screens that many parents reach for in desperation are not wicked, but they are rarely necessary, and a christening or naming ceremony is precisely the kind of occasion where the alternative, rooted in traditional play, tends to linger in family memory long after the order of service has been recycled.
If your toddler struggles despite every preparation, that is completely normal. The developmental window for sitting still in a formal setting does not reliably open until around age five or six, and even then it is variable. What you are doing at a christening is not failing to manage your child; you are simply accompanying a small person whose nervous system is doing exactly what it was built to do.
Toddlers are, in the words of developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik, "the research and development department of the human species." Their brains are primed for exploration, novelty and movement, not for the contained stillness that a church pew or a formal naming ceremony demands. The prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control and the capacity to wait, is one of the last regions of the brain to mature, continuing its development well into the mid-twenties. Expecting a two- or three-year-old to sit quietly for forty minutes is, quite literally, a neurological impossibility.
What the Research Tells Us
Developmental scientist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and her colleague Roberta Golinkoff have spent decades demonstrating that children learn best through play that is active, engaged and socially connected. Passive containment, whether in front of a screen or simply held still, produces none of those conditions. Short, interactive bursts of play, by contrast, regulate a toddler's arousal and restore the calm that formal occasions require.
The service is the hardest stretch. Aim to keep your toddler engaged through their hands and your voice, very quietly, rather than through visual entertainment. Classic finger rhymes such as "Incy Wincy Spider," "Two Little Dicky Birds," and "Round and Round the Garden" work because they are interactive, short and endlessly repeatable. Each one takes roughly thirty seconds; you can cycle through a repertoire of six or seven and cover several minutes without drawing a sound.
Whispered storytelling is equally powerful. You do not need a book; you need only to lean close and narrate what you can see: "That candle is very tall, shall we count the windows together?" Turning observation into a quiet game keeps a toddler anchored to you and to the room, rather than restless against it. If the fidgeting intensifies, a simple tactile object in the pocket, a smooth wooden shape or a small fabric animal, gives hands something to do without producing noise.
The changing bag is your greatest ally. Pack it the night before, and pack it with intention. The principle is variety over volume: three or four items that are physically and imaginatively different from one another will hold attention far longer than a pile of familiar toys from home.
Resist the urge to offer everything at once. Introduce items one at a time, and hold the best for last.
The reception that follows a christening is richer in play possibilities than it first appears. A toddler and a willing grandparent need almost nothing beyond each other. "I Spy" can be played with colours rather than letters for under-threes. Simple hiding games with a napkin or a hat delight children who have only recently discovered that objects continue to exist when concealed, the milestone Jean Piaget called object permanence. A stack of cardboard coasters becomes a construction challenge. A row of glasses contains a percussion orchestra, struck gently with a teaspoon under close adult supervision.
The Social Bridge of Traditional Play
Jeffrey Trawick-Smith's long-running TIMPANI study found that the toys and games most likely to produce sustained, high-quality play are those that are open-ended and invite social interaction between players of different ages. Simple traditional games, requiring no technology and almost no equipment, fulfil this criterion precisely. A grandparent teaching a toddler to build a tower from coasters is not filling time; they are doing something neurologically valuable for both of them.
There is something about a well-made wooden toy that invites older relatives in rather than shutting them out. A screen excludes: it faces one way and absorbs the child into a private world. A set of skittles or a compact travel game sits on the table between people and asks to be shared. Grandparents who grew up with traditional games recognise them instantly and lean forward rather than back. That moment of recognition, an older relative remembering the same game from their own childhood and teaching it to the youngest person in the room, is one of the quieter gifts a family occasion can offer.
Browse Jaques London Travel Games: compact, beautifully made and designed for exactly these momentsEvery toddler has a threshold, and formal events push it reliably. Signs that yours is approaching the edge include increased motor activity, louder vocalisation, clinginess and a sudden loss of interest in anything you offer. The single most effective response is to remove them from the room before the threshold is crossed rather than after. Step outside, crouch to their level, and offer five minutes of physical movement: running to a tree, collecting stones, splashing in a puddle. The neurological purpose of this is genuine, not merely crowd-pleasing. Jaak Panksepp's work on the PLAY system in the mammalian brain demonstrated that brief, vigorous physical play rapidly reduces stress hormones and restores regulatory capacity. You are not retreating; you are resetting.
If you are a guest rather than a parent, the most meaningful gift you can bring is one that grows with the child. A beautifully crafted traditional game, chosen with the next three or four years in mind, will be played with long after novelty gifts have been forgotten. Look for pieces that are satisfying to hold, games that reward repeated play, and designs that have endured across generations because they are genuinely good rather than merely fashionable.
Explore Jaques London Traditional Games: gifts chosen by families since 1795Jaques of London has been making games and toys since 1795, longer than any other games company in the world. That longevity is not coincidence; it is the result of making things that children and families consistently return to. A Jaques game given at a christening today may well be the game a child packs in their own bag for their child's naming day in thirty years' time.
Start with your hands and your voice, not with objects. A whispered finger rhyme keeps a toddler's attention locked to you rather than to the room. If that stops working, introduce the first item from your bag slowly and without fuss. If restlessness tips into distress, simply leave the pew quietly. There is no shame in stepping to the back of the church or outside entirely; every parent of a toddler in the room will recognise the gesture and feel solidarity rather than judgement. The goal is a calm child, not a perfectly attended service.
Several classics require nothing but people and imagination. Colour "I Spy" works beautifully for under-threes. Simple hiding games with a napkin captivate children who are at the peak of their object-permanence delight. "Simon Says" needs no props and can be played at a table between courses. Grandparents are often the best players in the room for these games, partly because they remember them from their own childhoods and partly because they are not distracted by phones. The research of Hart and Risley into language development reminds us that these moments of back-and-forth interaction between older and younger family members are among the richest linguistic environments a young child can inhabit.
Prioritise things that are silent, self-contained and open-ended: a small wooden puzzle, a compact stacking toy, or a travel version of a classic game with pieces that do not roll. The key quality to look for is that the object rewards exploration rather than demanding a specific outcome, because a toddler who cannot complete something in a formal setting will escalate rather than persist. Jaques London's travel games range has been designed with portability and longevity equally in mind, and many pieces are robust enough to survive a changing bag without a protective case.
Look for three qualities: physical craft that a child can feel in their hands, an element of social play that requires another person, and a design that has already proved itself across time. Games that have been made and remade across generations are not popular by accident; they have survived because they meet something genuine in how children play and how families gather. Beyond brand, the most lasting gifts are those that the child will grow into rather than out of, something that feels a little beyond them now and is conquered gradually over the years that follow.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.