Moving house with a 9m old! Advice please!

[Toastingthebun]

We are moving house next month, so we are starting to prepare for the move. But as the title suggests, we will have a 9m old crawling around and trying to pull up and walk everywhere. She's also very clingy so can't really put her in her playpen for more than 10 minutes whilst we move furniture...

Have you moved house with a baby before?

What tips/advice would you give to help our move go smoothly?

Thanks x

We moved last summer with a 9 month old. She watched a lot of CBeebies in her bouncer chair (baby Bjorn one so she still fit in it!) and we had family members help, so we always had one person on baby watching duty and there were enough people still helping with the packing and moving. It was hard. Good luck!

I would pay a company to pack for you the day before the move. Cost is small in comparison to overall move cost. I'd give her to someone to look after for the day or leave your DP to it and come back when it's done!

Right so I’ve moved with...

A 6 month old
A 17 month old while 6 months pregnant
A 2.5 year old and a 9 month old
A 3 year old and a 16 month old
A 4 year old and a 2 year old

They were all fairly long distance moves... all different counties.

To be honest, all those times it was divide and conquer. We never had removal vans, it was always DH and my dad doing it in a hired van, so I generally kept the DC out of the way while they moved furniture.
Packing done in the evenings while DC are in bed.
Make sure whoever is doing the moving knows what rooms things have to be in at the other end.
Keep DC out of the way on moving day.
Make sure everything you need for the baby for the first night is easily accessible and packed/assembled first.
Unpack in the evenings when DC are in bed!

The ideal scenario is to be baby-free on the big day. That will give you the chance to get her bedroom straight, so she is in familiar surroundings when she finally arrived.
If you’ve got her with you on moving day, a travel cot comes in handy if you’re trying to unpack and want to make sure she has somewhere safe to play. Keep her routine as normal as possible.
Chances are, your old curtains won’t fit your new windows. Travel blackout blinds are a good idea if your baby’s used to sleeping in a dark room.
There might be new noises that she’s not used to in your new house, so a white noise machine will be useful.
Pack everything you need for three days (or more) in one place that you keep by your side for easy access on moving day and the first few days after.
Arrange the nursery as closely as possible to your previous nursery.

We moved last year with a 18 month old and a 12 week old. I slowly packed as much as I could that wouldn't be missed. Numbered and labeled each box and had a list of where each box needed to go in the new house, a sheet was given to the removal men so they knew which room was which. Also had a note of importance to unpack by for myself. In the last few days I packed everything else and only left enough for us to live with.

On moving day I had a suitcase of all the children's important items such as clothes, food, bedding, bouncy chair and yoga ball (only way baby would bounce to sleep)... Along with ours and our important documents. These came in the car with us. I took the children out while dh and removal men packed and cleaned.

When we arrived we got out what we needed and the very kind removal men put up all beds, cots and stair gates as a priority.

It wasn't fun, but it wasn't painful either.

Good luck!

I’ve moved with a 11 month old while 12 weeks pregnant.

We paid a company to actually move us and family helped pack the house

We made sure DS furniture was the last on the lorry so first off so his room could be sorted first

I packed an overnight bag for all of us so didn’t have to dig through boxes for anything

DS went to my mums for a few hours while we emptied the house and unloaded at the other end. He just came to the new house when the movers had gone and his room was being sorted

Was relatively straight forward and relaxed

I moved from Scotland to London with a 5 day old. Do I win? I have no advice because it was all a hideous blur. Pps are very sensible. You can do this, OP.

Pay for packers.

We moved with a 10 day old
A 9 month old and pregnant
3 under 3’s.

There is cash I resented paying (estate agent fees) and cash that I didn’t (packers and an excellent conveyancer).

Currently in the middle of moving with a 15 month old and I’m 33 weeks pregnant. I’ve slowly packed over the last couple of weeks and DH is currently moving most of the stuff right now into the new house because we have a van hired until tomorrow.

Plan for the morning is to get DS up and DH will put his cot and our bed in the van and move those with the remainder of our clothes and kitchen bits from the fridge etc. DS’s cot will be set up first and we will slowly get through everything after that so he an nap there in the afternoon 🤞🏻

We moved into our current house with a 9mo and 3yo. Tbh it's always going to be tricky, especially if, like us, if you have no relatives to help. Like PPs have said, lots of late night packing in the lead up whilst they are in bed and I basically carried the 9mo around our new house until the removal men had gone then gave him a box to play in whilst in the same room as me as we unpacked!
It's never going to be easy but, hopefully, a few days/weeks of stress will be worth it once you're settled in your new home

Forgot to say, I labelled every box with a room name/numbers and then put corresponding labels on the doors.

Meant the movers could see exactly what I wanted to go where