Mellow Mummy: Moving House With A Toddler – Survival Tips : Taking life as it comes...

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Moving House With A Toddler – Survival Tips


Yay. It finally happened. I've moved house. Phew. Goodbye rubbish neighbours. Hello peaceful suburbia. Here's to a lifestyle where the most exciting thing to happen in the town since June (and worthy of page 3 in the local residents newsletter, no doubt) is the decision to paint the village hall an ever-so-slightly lighter shade of blue than previously documented! Nice.

Buying and selling a house was pretty stressful. I don't recommend it if you want to avoid premature ageing, over-consumption of alcohol (or takeaways) or if your repetoire of swear words is small.

Moving day however was one of the easiest parts of the whole process, which is surprising, given that I have a 15 month old. Here is how I got through it!

  1. Find somewhere for your child to be during the day so that you can concentrate on moving, and not on looking after them. Lara went to the childminder for the day but we had several offers from friends and family to take her off our hands. It might be a bit weird for them to leave you at one home and meet you again at another but it's probably best that they're out from under your feet.

  2. If you can afford to do so, pay a removals company do your packing, including dismantling your cot and changing unit and putting them back together at the other end. We were so grateful that Lara could sleep in her own room in her own bed on the day we moved house.

  3. Pack clothes and nappies for several days in a bag that you never let out of your sight! We didn't get around to unpacking Lara's boxes of clothes until 2 days after the move so I was grateful that I had reserved enough outfits and nappies to keep us going.

  4. Know where you packed the stair gate. Lara can't have had free reign of the house for more than half an hour before she took her first tumble down the stairs. She was fine as she'd only made it up two stairs but it kicked me in to action to go and find that stair gate – it took a lot of rummaging to locate the right box.


I'm sure there are other things I learned about moving with a toddler so leave me a comment if you need more tips!
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