Two year old moving house. Tips?

[Mummyteachmummy]

We're moving house next week, a hundred miles away, so everything's going to be new.

DD loves 'our house' so, do much, it really is her haven. My question is how on earth do I prevent her from being traumatised by the whole thing?

Does anybody know of any books about moving/ have any tips on sweet little ways we can make it fun, understandable and exciting as opposed to scary, confusing and sad?!

Thanks in advance - tying myself up in knots about this!

[LittleBlueHermit]

I'd love some help with this too! We're moving with a 23 month old next month, and I'm already worrying about how to ease the transition.

[TheTravellingLemon]

Us too! And completely different area too so he's going to miss all his little friends

[5madthings]

I don't know about books you can buy but can you print out pictures of the New house and make a little scrap book and label all the rooms and maybe even add some ideas for her room ie New bed covers or a rug and lamp shade in her fave colours of character?

Wehave moved lots but it wad always locally so kids saw New house etc before.

Oh as well as pics of the New house and garden how about googling local area and getting pics of parks and places she can go once there?

[nousernamesleft]

When we moved last, ds was 3, and I kept his new room as similar to the old one as possible - same furniture, bedding, layout etc. It was also the first room to be sorted, he spent a night at my mums and came home to the new.house with his bedroom organised.
I left all the new things for a few weeks later, when he'd settled in a little bit.
There was a teddy sitting in the kitchen when we moved in too, with a letter for ds, welcoming him to teddy's house, saying that teddy was very excited to have a new friend, what a wonderful place it was, and that teddy couldn't wait to show ds the local park, swimming pool, etc.
Ds was so excited to meet teddy and go to all these amazing places with him that he didn't look back.

[ilovevenice]

I moved a few years ago now with my about to be 2 year old, then had a baby a month later - oh and his nanny left the week before we moved as well. Amazingly he was absolutely fine! I think I'd underestimated how important DH and I were, and if we were there and kept his routine as regular as possible, he felt secure. I really worried about it beforehand. Good luck!

[KatyN]

we just moved with my 2.6 year old. I was concerned he'd be upset by it but it went REALLY smoothly. My mum sent him the usbourne first experience of moving house book which he liked but not especially.

My top tips are that we talked about it A LOT. I also hyped up that the new house had a garden and stairs. I had totally forgotten how enormous his new bedroom was or I could have got him excited about that too!. My MIL came down for 3 days over the moving weekend. She took my son to the park while the men packed the vans and then we all travelled to the new house together. when we got there MIL played in the garden with my son while we rushed around getting everything in from the vans and some basics back to normal so he could eat off his highchair, watch telly and go to bed.

Since then we've delayed doing too many jobs at the weekend so we can settle in together.

good luck!!

[naturalbaby]

I talked about it a lot too and my dc's were fine (including 2yr old). I also showed them pictures of the new house regularly.

[culturemulcher]

I'm right there with you OP. We're a couple of weeks away from our move, and the DC keep bursting into tears! It's awful. There's nothing really to inspire them about the move. They're moving away from all their friends and everything they've known... to go to a different part of the country where they'll have to make new friends, and live in a house which needs a lot of work so won't seem at all 'fun' from their p.o.v.

I'm at a loss as to how to enthuse them even a little about moving. They're a bit too old for lovely things like a welcome letter from a new teddy (such a sweet idea nousernames )

Hard, isn't it?

[Givemecaffeine21]

One of the things my sister did in this situation was put a present in the house waiting for her DD before she went in. And hype...lots of hype. We helped them move and raced around like loonies saying how amazing it all was. My DN struggled tremendously with change prior to that so we were worried, but she was brilliant and the present (a balance bike I think) went down really well and was a welcome distraction.

[awfulomission]

Our moving company let us have some boxes beforehand (we bought the packing service too) and let our two decorate them so they were the boxes 'their things' went in. That helped a lot.

One of my two likes to know everything that happens/will happen. We used this company and found their promotional video here oddly very helpful for him. It was all very calm and made him feel safer iykwim.

[madeofkent]

Another vote for keeping the same stuff in the new bedroom, I know it's tempting to do it all up but you will be so tired and they need to be settled at night. We moved multiple times while DS was small and I always had to race to paint the walls yellow and put down his yellow rugs and red and blue bookcases. As long as it's roughly similar and the bedding is the same, all familiar things around her, at least one place will feel safe.

[ScarlettlovesRhett]

We have moved a few times now - agree with previous posters about keeping things as similar as possible in their bedroom.

I always keep the kids bedding from being packed and take it in the car, then the first rooms to get unpacked are theirs. Beds built and made straight away and unpack toys & posters/wall stickers etc as soon as poss.

My boys have settled really quickly in every new house - we always say goodbye to our old house and have a look round the empty rooms when the removals are finished, there's usually a few tears then, but the excitement of a new house quashes any sadness pretty fast.

The trick is to make it 'home' as quickly as you can.

[Mummyteachmummy]

Goodness, thank you so much for so many amazing ideas! I'm going to try basically all of them! Getting up the notes section on my phone to list...

God, I hope this goes well! Unfortunately we've viewed a LOT of houses (with DD in tow) and called them all 'new houses'/ 'we're going to looked at one more new house' etc, so now I when I say 'the new house', I think she just thinks me something of a transient and thinks it refers to something we visit for 15 mins then leave, never to see again!

culturemulcher good luck to guys too, sounds tough!

[culturemulcher]

Thanks mummyteach - and good luck to you!

Awfulo thanks for those ideas - love the idea of them decorating their boxes and I'm realising that their anxiety does dip when we take the time to stop, and tell them in minute detail what's happening and what's going to happen next.

Thanks all.