Moving with small kids

[Deleted]

Has anyone moved with a toddler/preschooler?
DS is going to be 4 soon and we've been talking about moving to a new city/new house with him on a general basis. He's also come to view several houses with us. We've told him that all of his toys and furniture and everything would get moved and we'd still live close enough to our current town, he could still see some of his friends.

Our house is up for sale and we have a potential offer that H and I have been discussing this weekend.

This morning DS asked me if I was dropping him off at daycare and he's going to live there forever because we're moving.
Obviously I missed something somewhere

Does anyone have any tips? I plan to do some drawings where there is a moving van and all of us getting in and going to a new place. What have others done?

[moopoint17]

We moved in December with a 3.5yo and a 8mo old. DS1 loved going to see houses with us -- he's just as nosy about other people's business!

But the transition from the old place was easy for us. We were going from a condo to a house. We focused on the positives with getting a house -- more room, closer to his cousins and he didn't have neighbors knocking on the walls to keep quiet. He was so thrilled he couldn't wait to get out of the old place (and neither could we).

[anna7602]

We moved to another country when DD was 3.5, taking very little with us and doing nothing on the language prep front. We bought some fun books focusing on our new city, but didn't talk it up too much so she wouldn't get very anxious. At the time, long-term concepts were really abstract for her. We just did the same kind of "hey, this will be so exciting" kind of talk we did before vacations and then focused a lot on her when the move actually happened- doing lots of things as a family in the new place, involving her in decisions about room decorating, finding new parks and children's museums, etc.

[kategm]

Mar 9, 2015 13:48:09 GMT -5 @pnkybrwstr said:

O was only 16 months when we moved, and he took it hard, which I didn't expect. I read somewhere that having the child pack up a box of their most prized stuff, and explaining it would be coming with, and then unpacking that box together at the new place could help. Seems worth a shot.

No! That's how old DD will be when we move. I'm already scared for her having trouble with sleeping in a new room and starting a new school. Did y'all have issues beyond that? What kinds of things did he have trouble with?

[cinco]

My kids were 7, 5, and 1 when we moved. I wasn't too concerned about the baby, and DS was starting kindergarten anyway. DD1 was starting 2nd and she did great. We borrowed some books about moving from the library and let them decorate their new rooms.

[Deleted]

We moved in September when DS was 2.5 years old. We got "The Berenstain Bears Moving Day" book from the library about a month in advance, and read it daily. It was a HUGE HELP. He could really *see* in the pictures what was going to happen. When we toured the new house we put a fancy new toy (a large Tonka police truck) in his room, he was thrilled. "A new toy in my new room!" he said. My parents did the same thing when I was a kid, I still remember how excited I was to find that My Little Pony in my room.

[kategm]

Mar 9, 2015 14:05:58 GMT -5 @pnkybrwstr said:

Mar 9, 2015 13:54:40 GMT -5 kategm said:

No! That's how old DD will be when we move. I'm already scared for her having trouble with sleeping in a new room and starting a new school. Did y'all have issues beyond that? What kinds of things did he have trouble with?

I was seriously shocked.  O is the most easy going kid ever, and he was a hot mess.  Super clingy, couldn't be out of his sight, and just plain sad.  On the plus side, he seemed to love being in his crib (maybe it felt like home?).  It only lasted a few days, so it wasn't terrible.

Ok, that makes me feel better because that's a normal day for us. Fingers crossed it won't be a hard transition!

[Deleted]

We're moving next month (DD is 2.5) to a new state, and we keep talking up the move, how we're going to have a big, new house, and her aunts and uncle are there, and how one of her aunt's is having a baby so she'll have a cousin to help take care of.

We'll be moving her from an in home daycare to a center, so we keep talking about how she's going to go to school when we move, etc.

Our plan when we get there is to unpack her room first before anything else. We bought her a new big girl bed, and bedding, so hopefully that will help with the adjustment.

[thejen626]

We moved last March when my kids were almost 5, and 18 months old. It was insane lol. We didn't take DD1 to any houses until after we made our offer. I didn't want her to get excited or attached to a new place until it was "ours".

Get the different colors of tape to mark which boxes go where. Very helpful.

[imojoebunny]

We mostly shopped for houses as a family with my 4 and 7 year old (at the time). We had bought a vacation house the year before, so they were used to it.

My 4, almost 5, at the time, year old did not handle our move well. We only moved 2 miles, but we left behind a neighborhood where he could simply walk into people's houses without knocking, for one were people are decidedly, less friendly, and we don't know people very well (typical, when you move somewhere).

The first week, he refused to buckle into his seat to take his sister to school.

The next week, he wrote his name on practically every wall in the upstairs of the brand new house.

He became more inflexible about doing things that I wanted to do (go to the park, to dinner, ect).

He still seems a bit angry sometimes, and both kids ask to move back now and again, but of our little strip, 6 out of 7 families moved at the same time, so even if we had stayed, it would have changed.

[mlt]

Moving was really hard on my almost-four year old. He asked to stay at the old house every day for weeks leading up to the move. We decorated his room first and that helped some. But change is hard for him and the chaos of boxes and unpacking and packing meant horrible behavior for almost a month. Testing limits, tons of tears, trouble sleeping, etc.

[hilwithonelary]

DS was 4.5 when we moved. It was extra confusing for him because I stayed at my parents for 6 weeks before joining DH in temporary housing for another 3 weeks until we could move into our house.

We also read "The Berenstain Bears Moving Day" like supergreen and talked about moving to our new house a lot. I think it helped some, but DS still had some trouble adjusting. He'd often get sad and say, "I want to go to my home." It took him several months before he was completely ok with it.

If anyone with younger kids is reading this thread, I'll tell you that at 2.5, DD did not care one bit about moving.

[stephm0188]

My kiddo was 3 when we moved. We had a 60 day escrow, and the house was empty when we saw it, so that helped. Anyhow, I showed him picture often while we were preparing to move. "This is going to be your playroom where all your toys will go. This is going to be your room, and your bed will go right here. Here's where mommy and daddy will sleep."

His room was the last thing packed and one of the first things unpacked and set up.

He was fine. No issues adjusting.

[origami]

We moved locally when my kids were 3 and internationally when my kids were 3.5. We just talked up the moves and made the new area sound really exciting. For a while they asked about going back to our old house but the transition was a lot easier than I expected.

[ginkgoleaf]

We moved when DS was just over 2. He didn't have any problem with it. He had seen the new house several times, we'd talked about how someone was going to rent our old house, he saw the new house for several months while we did renovations before moving in, and his room was the first one set up there. We also bought a train table (coincidental timing) and that was at the new house, so he was perfectly happy to go there and play while we did some work before moving in. The hardest part was the actual move with a 2yo, so get a babysitter or family help. Good luck!

[iheartbanjos]

We've moved out of state once with a 9 month old and once with a 5 month old and 3 year old.

Both times, we house hunted without kids and when we moved, we set up their rooms before they got there. The rest if the house was boxes, but at least their rooms were in tact.

We told DD1 that we're moving to X, and there are new friends there waiting to meet her. We started in in daycare and activities right away, where she did, in fact, make new friends.

We also had a new toy waiting for her at the new house. It was a bounce house that we set up in the basement since we moved during winter.