Tips for minimising the impact of big change

[MrsWheels]

Despite my best efforts to avoid it, we are looking to be faced with having our second baby, moving house and my eldest starting preschool all in the space of 2-3weeks.

My eldest is 2.5 and I was worried enough about the impact of one of these things on her, I'm really stressing about it all happening at once and how much she'll regress and her behaviour change.

Any tips or advice to help ease this massive transition for her, please?

Thanks.

That is a lot of change in one short space of time but at least it will be all out of the way in more or less one go.

We always did lots of preparation before life events by reading books, you know what toddlers are like though, they'll probably want you to read the book 100 times.

We moved house at a similar time and our DS was remarkably good with it. We sent him to his DGPs for the day and when he got here the living room was set up and had some of his toys in and the bedrooms were set up. He just went to bed as normal that night.

Is your DP/DH taking any paternity leave?

Thank you. Reading books is a great idea. She loves reading. We have one about a new baby but hadn't thought of doing the same for moving house.

Yes thankfully DH is off for 6 weeks from when the baby arrives, which should, barring anything terrible, be the first thing that happens in the chain of change! So at least there is two of us to help her with the adjustments.

We found that dividing us up helped. DS always liked being busy so he took him out most mornings and then I just had the baby to sort out. By the time he went back to work, about 4 weeks, we were getting nicely into a routine and LO was sleeping on the preschool runs

I can only comment on the house move, from experience. We moved when my DD was just under 3.5. I talked about it to her a lot like a story - told her what would happen and when, and emphasised all the positives about the new place compared to the old place. Bought a story book about moving house too. We made cards for the neighbours she liked to say goodbye. We made sure all her special toys were unpacked and ready at the new house.

I also realised the sooner I felt settled at the new house, the sooner she would feel settled - so do what you can to make yourself feel positive about it. I started going for nice walks in the new local area and making connections waving good morning to people / chatting to the neighbours. I threw myself into gardening and making the house nice. I invited my friends and family round lots the first few weekends so we all had some good happy memories associated with the new place to make it feel like home. I got lots of cosy throws and nice new lamps to make the living room feel like a lovely place to be. I developed new routines. The more I settled, the more she did. They take their cues from you on all things, so do whatever you can to help YOU cope with the change and they will follow suit.