Tips For Moving Day With The Kids
If you need to move across town or across the country, this is already a very stressful process. When you have children, it makes it that much harder. Not only does a child have a lot more items to move, it always doesn’t allow you to have as much time to focus on packing up and the actual moving process. For that reason, many people prefer to hire a moving company to help with parts of the process.
We are here to help you if you are moving with kids. Keep reading our website as we share our top tips. You will be so glad you kept reading so the process goes by that much smoother.
The first recommendation we have is to start as early as possible. If you find out you are moving and it’s months in advance, that’s the perfect time to start. Whether you want to toss items and sell them, donate them, or give some away, that choice is up to you. Start going through your home and decluttering it. The last thing you need is to pack up something you don’t use anymore and bring it all the way to your new home where you will continue to not use it. If you have not used an item in a year or two, just feel free to toss it.
So many items in your home are not used on a regular basis. This means that over half the items you can probably get away with starting to box them up. Start going through all your items once you have tossed them and think about the next time you will need to use it. If it is not for a couple months, start packing it up. This will make the final moving process take a lot less time and be a lot simpler. Starting well in advance when you have children allows you to go at your own pace and not feel rushed. When they are napping or playing, you can start going through items.
The next tip we have is during moving day. Depending on how far away from your old house will depend on how large a bag you pack, but it’s important to pack a couple essentials for your child. Even if you are only moving a couple blocks away, it will probably take a few days to unload many of their items. Because of this, it’s important to pack a couple of spare clothes for them, overnight items, any medication they may require, and a couple of their favorite toys. This will help them to feel more at home regardless of where they are. Anything you know that they will like in order to feel comforted will help during this time. Some of those items include a favorite blanket or their favorite place to eat out.
Depending on what age your children are will depend on how much they are understanding the moving process. Most children don’t understand when you are simply telling them, they will visually understand more. For this reason, allow your child to not only say goodbye to their room but to their old house too. Allow them to share their favorite memory of the home with you and you can say goodbye too.
Just like many things you do with your child, ensure you reward them. Show them how exciting moving to a new home is and why it’s such a good idea for them. You can highlight any positives there are that affect them. For example, there is a playground close by the home, they get their own room, you can paint the room whatever color you want, the school has a lot of kids your age so you will meet a lot of new friends. You can also regard them for doing so great on the move and purchase them a new toy of their choice. If you are frustrated about the move at all or stressed out during the moving process, try to hide it from your child so they don’t pick up on it and start feeling the same way.
Our final tip for moving with kids is to hire a moving company. The entire moving process is stressful enough, you don’t need to be doing everything yourself, especially since many items in your home is probably too large to move and to fit in your car. Try and budget to find out how many hours you can hire a moving company for. This will help you to know how much you need to get done ahead of time and how much they will be able to help with. Once they show up you can introduce your children to the movers and let them know why they are there to help. To ensure the process goes as quickly and smoothly as it can, try and either take your child elsewhere for the day or have a friend or family member pick them up. This will ensure the movers can get to work and not have to work around your children and fear they are under their feet at all while moving large items.
Moving with kids is not easy, in fact, moving, in general, is a very stressful time and adding kids into the mix makes it even more difficult. We hope you found these tips to be helpful for your next move and it makes the process go a little smoother. For more tips on moving with children, contact us today.