Moving to a new house an hour away. Advice needed on how to explain to a 3 year old?

[Daylightrainbows]

We are in the process of buying a house about an hour away from our current one. We currently live in a flat in London and will be moving into a large detached house in a village so a big change. I have a just turned 3 year old who is very settled at her current nursery and other routines such as swimming. Play group etc. I have been dropping hints about how nice it will be to have a house and a garden but not sure she understands. I’d love advice about how others handled moving? Do you speak about the change in advance or just do it and explain when it happens? I’m really sad about moving her nursery as she does love it and always comes home talking about the staff and other kids. I worry she’ll be confused when she doesn’t go any more and starts a new one 😢

lol you don't need to explain much to 3 year old. Don't make a thing of it. It's like when you go on holiday or go to visit someone away from home, they don't have a meltdown... literally the same.

They will re-settle quickly in a new house / nursery / place as kids are adaptable and barely remember their teachers and friends after not seeing them for a few weeks

We talked about it vaguely while it was still going through the process, talked about the positives of the new house but didn’t talk about it every day in case it fell through. Our sale and purchase stretched on and we had to extend our mortgage offer and still moved just before the extension expired so I did up the talk of the move about 2 weeks before we exchanged knowing we had to get DD used to it but also it was really close to falling apart. Again I didn’t go into too much detail. I got some books from Amazon, the Usbourne first experiences ‘moving house’ was good. We also got Topsy and Tim book but Tim let’s the cat out the cat carrier and it goes missing for a short while - we have pets so I sort of made up the story there to stop DD thinking we were going to lose our pets.

When we moved, I had a box that didn’t go in the van but came in the car with us. We got her some new pjs to wear her first night in her new room. I made sure I had her favourite teddies, calpol, a toy and some bedtime books so we could still do a relatively normal bedtime that first night whilst we unpacked. Our removal firm were great and put DD’s bed in first and assembled it as it was a bit late getting in.

Moving nursery was harder. It took a couple of weeks to settle but it’s fine, she made new friends quickly.

I would say prioritise making her new room nice.

I can't understate how brilliant the car-shaped bed was at getting my DS out of my bed and into his own as a toddler. We did up his room and made a big fuss about his new bed and he loved it.

Not suggesting you spend a fortune on a special bed! (We picked the car bed frame up second hand), but that you make it special for her in some way.

Otherwise, treat the whole thing as a big adventure.

I moved with 2& 3 yr old and tbf they were neither up nor down. Very excited about new rooms and a big garden, made new friends at nursery right away.
Dont let them see you're worried , it's all an adventure.
Involve them in choosing things for their new room.

I would do a PowerPoint presentation with a Cost and Benefit analysis.
As she is only three years old, I would put more emphasis on graphics, e.g. pie charts and bar charts.
You can have a Q &A session at the end.
(The presentation should be no more than an hour.)

😂

There are lots of good picture books about moving house. I know there is a Topsy and Tim one. Have a Google. Get a few of these to help her understand what moving house means before talking about you moving house!

We moved from a flat to a detached house when my DS was 3. I kept explanation to simple things like having a garden and more space.

When we moved in, he ran around the house saying 'haven't we got a lot of rooms Mummy'." He chose his bedroom, the closest to mine, but still slept in with me for a week or two until the house felt like home.

As long as you are there with him, he'll be fine.

We've moved twice with little ones now, first with a just-turned 3-year-old and this time with one who was almost 3 and one who was just-turned 5.

With the first move, when DC1 was 3, I didn't really explain much in advance because of the level he was at. With the second move, with DC2 being almost 3 (and because DC1 was a bit older now) I showed them both photos of the house on Rightmove and showed them which room would be theirs and in the weeks before we moved I bigged it up massively as "look we're moving out of our tiny old flat and moving into this amazing massive house where you'll have your own room instead of sharing and look how good it is!"

I also put on some of the episodes of Topsy and Tim that cover their house move because they both love T+T and we talked about how we were moving just like Topsy and Tim.

DC1 seemed to take it in his stride when we moved last time but really he struggled (moved from rural Ireland to a London flat) and started acting out, hitting us etc but he did get over it after a few months.

This time, DC1 has settled fine (he was the one I was worried most about) but DC2 has struggled a bit and sometimes she tells me she wants to go "home" to our little flat and wakes up in the night looking for other people quite often (she slept through before). It's early days since the move though so I'm not worried.

DC2 has always been very advanced with language and DC1 wasn't, so IDK if that's why they've been so different.

I don't think there's a perfect way to tell them but they do adjust in time at this age.

Edited to add: These were both long-distance moves so change of favourite places, shops, routines and childcare arrangements.

I knew a young child who thought moving meant leaving all your things behind, and living in someone else's house with all their things.

Wasn't fully reassured until they understood everyone takes all that they own, so you do get to keep your favourite toys.

Children's minds are fascinating.

I clicked in to say exactly this! My 4 year old got very upset at the thought of moving because he thought all his stuff would be left behind and he would have new stuff that came with the house (we weren’t actually even moving house, just a random worry!).

Thanks everyone. I know she’s still really young and doesn’t have the same emotional maturity to feel the way in my head I think she will but still want to make the move as smooth as possible. To be honest it’s probably also some of my own anxiety about the move from London creeping in! 😅. I think the advice on making her room feel inviting is a good one and will look into some books!