Relocating can be a very stressful event, especially if you plan to move to a different city. Moving with young children can make this situation even more stressful. Depending on the age of your kids, you may have to plan for extra childcare, activities, and additional storage. Our team at Ramsey’s Moving can help eliminate a lot of this stress with our services, but there are still some things that you can do to make you want to pull less of your hair out. Here are our top 4 tips for moving with children.
Schedule Child Care
When planning a move with children, one of the best things you can do is schedule child care. Whether this is one or two days, having a focused set of eyes to help feed, entertain, and provide activities for your kids while you focus on sorting, packing, cleaning, and directing the moving company will be a lifesaver. Of course, we recommend asking a family member or friend, but you can find incredible resources on care.com to streamline the process. These childcare workers are vetted by care.com and come with reputable backing.
Communicate with Them
If you are moving cross-country or cross-city, you are probably already dreading the time spent in the car to get to your next location. Your children will be extra sensitive to this as well. Not only are they leaving behind their comfort zone, but they are also heading into the unknown—unknown home, unknown city, unknown schools, etc. Recognizing that your children are under stress and having an understanding conversation about expectations, fears, and things to look forward to can help them start to feel calm about the changes about to take place. This will make the move, and the drive, a lot better for the family!
Make Them Part of the Process
In addition, allowing your children to pack their own bedroom and toys will help them feel part of the process and less emotional overall. Less emotional children will help alleviate a lot of stress on parents. Not only can the kids see where their stuff is going, but they can follow their boxes from the old home to the new house.
Plan Something Fun
Whether it’s a pizza and slumber party in the new home or an excursion to a museum or park in the new city or area, planning something fun after the move will allow your children to relax and feel more ‘at home’. Our recommendation is to schedule one or two days after your move is finalized and spend quality time as a family. Ask locals where the best tourist spots are in the area, take a walk and get familiar with the neighborhood, or go out to eat at a favorite local eatery. Whatever you do, enjoy being together.
There’s a lot of stress involved in moving with or without children. We hope these tips will give you some hope for your future move. Please get in touch with us so we can help you in your moving process. We are here to assist you with packing to unpacking and all the stuff in between.