diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 56841532..6fd32b92 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
 *.py[cod]
+*.swp
+
+.ropeproject
 
 # C extensions
 *.so
@@ -33,4 +36,4 @@ nosetests.xml
 # Mr Developer
 .mr.developer.cfg
 .project
-.pydevproject
\ No newline at end of file
+.pydevproject
diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 6ac5dd3d..9874fa00 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -59,6 +59,12 @@ Enable the components in your `settings.py`:
   # Schedule requests using a stack (LIFO).
   SCHEDULER_QUEUE_CLASS = 'scrapy_redis.queue.SpiderStack'
 
+  # Max idle time to prevent the spider from being closed when distributed crawling
+  # this only work if queue class is SpiderQueue or SpiderStack
+  # and may also block the same time when your spider start at the first time (because the queue is empty).
+  SCHEDULER_IDLE_BEFORE_CLOSE = 10
+
+
   # store scraped item in redis for post-processing
   ITEM_PIPELINES = [
       'scrapy_redis.pipelines.RedisPipeline',
diff --git a/scrapy_redis/queue.py b/scrapy_redis/queue.py
index 583c090f..a95dc4f8 100644
--- a/scrapy_redis/queue.py
+++ b/scrapy_redis/queue.py
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ def push(self, request):
         """Push a request"""
         raise NotImplementedError
 
-    def pop(self):
+    def pop(self, timeout=0):
         """Pop a request"""
         raise NotImplementedError
 
@@ -57,9 +57,14 @@ def push(self, request):
         """Push a request"""
         self.server.lpush(self.key, self._encode_request(request))
 
-    def pop(self):
+    def pop(self, timeout=0):
         """Pop a request"""
-        data = self.server.rpop(self.key)
+        if timeout > 0:
+            data = self.server.brpop(self.key, timeout)
+            if isinstance(data, tuple):
+                data = data[1]
+        else:
+            data = self.server.rpop(self.key)
         if data:
             return self._decode_request(data)
 
@@ -77,8 +82,11 @@ def push(self, request):
         pairs = {data: -request.priority}
         self.server.zadd(self.key, **pairs)
 
-    def pop(self):
-        """Pop a request"""
+    def pop(self, timeout=0):
+        """
+        Pop a request
+        timeout not support in this queue class
+        """
         # use atomic range/remove using multi/exec
         pipe = self.server.pipeline()
         pipe.multi()
@@ -99,9 +107,15 @@ def push(self, request):
         """Push a request"""
         self.server.lpush(self.key, self._encode_request(request))
 
-    def pop(self):
+    def pop(self, timeout=0):
         """Pop a request"""
-        data = self.server.lpop(self.key)
+        if timeout > 0:
+            data = self.server.blpop(self.key, timeout)
+            if isinstance(data, tuple):
+                data = data[1]
+        else:
+            data = self.server.lpop(self.key)
+
         if data:
             return self._decode_request(data)
 
diff --git a/scrapy_redis/scheduler.py b/scrapy_redis/scheduler.py
index 0ffcf5d6..183c8885 100644
--- a/scrapy_redis/scheduler.py
+++ b/scrapy_redis/scheduler.py
@@ -11,12 +11,13 @@
 QUEUE_KEY = '%(spider)s:requests'
 QUEUE_CLASS = 'scrapy_redis.queue.SpiderPriorityQueue'
 DUPEFILTER_KEY = '%(spider)s:dupefilter'
+IDLE_BEFORE_CLOSE = 0
 
 
 class Scheduler(object):
     """Redis-based scheduler"""
 
-    def __init__(self, server, persist, queue_key, queue_cls, dupefilter_key):
+    def __init__(self, server, persist, queue_key, queue_cls, dupefilter_key, idle_before_close):
         """Initialize scheduler.
 
         Parameters
@@ -26,12 +27,14 @@ def __init__(self, server, persist, queue_key, queue_cls, dupefilter_key):
         queue_key : str
         queue_cls : queue class
         dupefilter_key : str
+        idle_before_close : int
         """
         self.server = server
         self.persist = persist
         self.queue_key = queue_key
         self.queue_cls = queue_cls
         self.dupefilter_key = dupefilter_key
+        self.idle_before_close = idle_before_close
         self.stats = None
 
     def __len__(self):
@@ -45,8 +48,9 @@ def from_settings(cls, settings):
         queue_key = settings.get('SCHEDULER_QUEUE_KEY', QUEUE_KEY)
         queue_cls = load_object(settings.get('SCHEDULER_QUEUE_CLASS', QUEUE_CLASS))
         dupefilter_key = settings.get('DUPEFILTER_KEY', DUPEFILTER_KEY)
+        idle_before_close = settings.get('SCHEDULER_IDLE_BEFORE_CLOSE', IDLE_BEFORE_CLOSE)
         server = redis.Redis(host, port)
-        return cls(server, persist, queue_key, queue_cls, dupefilter_key)
+        return cls(server, persist, queue_key, queue_cls, dupefilter_key, idle_before_close)
 
     @classmethod
     def from_crawler(cls, crawler):
@@ -59,6 +63,8 @@ def open(self, spider):
         self.spider = spider
         self.queue = self.queue_cls(self.server, spider, self.queue_key)
         self.df = RFPDupeFilter(self.server, self.dupefilter_key % {'spider': spider.name})
+        if self.idle_before_close < 0:
+            self.idle_before_close = 0
         # notice if there are requests already in the queue to resume the crawl
         if len(self.queue):
             spider.log("Resuming crawl (%d requests scheduled)" % len(self.queue))
@@ -76,7 +82,8 @@ def enqueue_request(self, request):
         self.queue.push(request)
 
     def next_request(self):
-        request = self.queue.pop()
+        block_pop_timeout = self.idle_before_close
+        request = self.queue.pop(block_pop_timeout)
         if request and self.stats:
             self.stats.inc_value('scheduler/dequeued/redis', spider=self.spider)
         return request