Moving Houses with Small Children

01/07/2019

Welcome to 2019! Hope everyone is having a great New Year so far! What a whirlwind the end of 2018 was for our family! After having our house for sale since February 2018, we finally got an offer at the beginning of November! Which we were over the moon excited about, but the downfall was we had to move in just over 2 weeks! That seemed like a very daunting task as my husband works out of town and we have 2 small children (3 and 5). I knew I had no time to procrastinate and got to work straight away! By moving day, I had the whole house packed so the movers could just come in and take everything to the new house! Here are some of my tips for moving with small children:

• Get Help!

I knew I could handle the packing on my own, but it would be really difficult with my children around asking for snacks and needing my attention. They went to our wonderful day home 3 afternoons a week so I could focus on the packing. My parents were also so kind as to watch them on weekends as well. I strongly suggest finding someone who can help with your kids so you can focus and stay organized.

• Stay Organized

Keeping your house organized on a daily basis is super helpful on just a regular day, but while moving it will keep you on track and able to find what you need both before you move and after you are in your new house. Try to keep your space as organized as possible! I moved furniture in each room so that I had a space to put packed boxes. I also kept a small basket on each floor with moving supplies like tape gun, sharpies, and labels. Make sure you write on each box what is in it and which room it goes to in the new house. I also wrote either essential or non-essential so I knew which boxes could be unpacked first.

• Pack Decor First

I started the packing process by packing the most non-essential items first. I started with decor and actually moved all these boxes to a storage unit that could be unpacked well after moving day! After packing decor, I moved on the other non-essential items that wouldn’t be needed in our 2 week moving time frame.

• Hire Help

Not only did I have help with my children, but we also had help with moving and cleaning. Because we had to move so quickly we hired a moving company to come the day of the move to load everything and take it to the new house and unload it. They were absolutely wonderful and it was such a relief to have someone booked with a truck. This was also a life saver for my back as I didn’t have to move any heavy furniture! Because everything was already packed up, it was an easy job for them! Part of our contract for the purchase of our house was that we get it professionally cleaned as we had a cat and the new owner was allergic to cats. Having a cleaner helped take more stress off me as well!

• Check Buy and Sell for Boxes!

I got some really awesome deals on boxes off Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace. You can also buy boxes from moving companies but be prepared to pay a lot of money for them! These are great quality boxes, but I was able to find some good quality boxes for less than half the price!

• Pack Most Toys Before Hand

My children did help me pack up their own toys and bedrooms! We set a small amount of toys that they would play with before the move aside. Think of going on a trip! Leave out a small box of toys, clothing and bedding that you will need before your move. This meant much less last minute packing.

Well that it! Because I stayed so organized before we moved, it made it so much easier to unpack at our new house. Let’s face it, once your moved, you have an unlimited amount of time to unpack! By labelling everything essential or non- essential, I was able to unpack only what we needed at the beginning and then slowly pick away at the rest. Because we moved before Christmas, I was careful to keep my Christmas boxes in a place I could find them. We are just over a month into our new home and almost have everything unpacked! Basements and garages are great places to keep all those extra boxes, and then you can just go through them as you have time.

Have you moved with children? What are some other great tips for moving