I recently wrote a post about things to look for when buying a new home, detailing things we were specifically looking for when we bought our first home. Little did we know that this would be the easy part. The hardest part was still to come, moving home with three young children!
Moving house with children can be really stressful. Not just on us as the parents, but on the kids too. It’s a change of location and a change of routine which can be unsettling for our little ones.
We tried to make the whole process as easy on the children as possible. Here are some tips we picked up along the way.
Start packing as early as possible.
Trust me, you have more stuff than you think! Anything that won’t be needed in the weeks before the move, get packed away. It will avoid the last minute panic pack! Also as you’re sorting, anything that hasn’t been used in the past 12 months or so, ask yourself is it really needed? Channel your inner Marie Kondo and get organising! Anything you no longer can need can be sold on, or gifted to your local charity shop.
Box things into rooms, not categories.
Try and pack your boxes according the room you will be unpacking in. It may seem practical to lump all the your books in with the kids books for example, but it will make things harder when it comes to unpacking. Packing the children’s stuff together on its own means they can unpack their own belongings and put them where they want them. And don’t forget to label your boxes!
Use a reputable removals company
To make the process simpler, you might want to have a look at removal companies. It means less trips between the old and new house, and you can entrust them to do the heavy lifting! They can help with packing if you’d like them to, or they can simply help transport your belongings.
Get your broadband and tv sorted
When we moved in we knew there was one thing we needed to do as a priority – sort out our broadband and tv! We wanted the kids to feel as comfortable and as “at home” as possible. We did our research on broadband and tv deals and got it set up as soon as we could. The kids wanted to be able to watch tv, or play games on their iPads and we knew they would be a welcome distraction while my husband and I dealt with the boring house stuff!
There are some great deals available for new customers. Our priority was definitely the speed and quality of the broadband connection. Not only do the kids use it for games and watching videos, I also rely on it for work. Plus nobody wants to settle down to watch Netflix to watch the buffering sign all night! So it’s definitely worth doing your research on getting the best deal for your family.
Pack an ‘essentials’ box
Pack a box for the first night filled with essentials. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the house is in disarray as long as you have your essentials! You’ll find you’ll want instant access to tea, coffee, snacks and toys for the kids. It’s also worth packing plates, utensils, a kettle and toilet roll! You don’t want to be searching through dozens of boxes for items you know you’ll need.
Hopefully you’ll have found these tips useful. If you have any tips of your own, feel free to add them in the comments!
I agree, packing early is very important. We moved a little while back but not far so we took a few boxes of things at a time to make the move more manageable.
These tips are so useful, especially packing an essentials box! I remember when I moved out briefly last year, it took me nearly a week to make a cup of tea cause I couldn’t remember where I’d packed my mugs! x
These tips are super useful! I like the tip about packing by ‘room’ not category. This makes so much more sense, but I probably would just have packed it all into a mess but this makes so much more sense! I’m also a bit of a procrastinator so definitely need to pack early like you say…
These are really helpful tips. We are hoping to move in the not too distant future and its been a long while since I last moved so needed this post!
Boxing things by room is such a fantastic idea! It can get so complicated if you do it another way.
An essentials box sounds like a good idea, especially for kids! We never thought about boxing up rooms either – great tips!
that “essentials box” is KEY! Seriously! We did that last time we moved and it was a godsend! Top tips for anyone moving, thanks!
We recently went though a house move over the summer and found be organised helped a lot. I’m got involved with the move and she loved loading the van up. It helped a lot with the transition we found