move house while pregnant, or while on maternity leave?

[Soverymuchfruit]

DC1 due late Nov. Planning to take up to a year off. We're going to move closer to my work for when I'm back. I have big work projects to finish before I go (nobody else will do while I'm off, job not like that). Had thought we'd move next year - DP can take tons of leave too, has excellent work policy. I hate moving, he knows and understands, so he would do much of the hard work anyway.

But MIL says it would be madness to move with a new tiny baby and we should move now. Is MIL correct? Have never had a tiny baby to care for ourselves, we don't know.

(Btw we love MIL and are happy to take her advice seriously and she won't pester us if we don't - absolutely no anti MIL sentiment here! )

Another reason to delay the move is my current local hospital is amazing, I've been there quite a bit, its maternity ward is CQC "outstanding", I trust them and am happy about giving birth there. Will be moving a long way from this hospital and the new one frankly isn't as good. This stresses me because I was v happy with my hospital decision. But is that honesty a small consideration in the grand scheme of things? (New one is CQC "good" for maternity so I may be being spoilt but I was a bit alarmed that the report said they don't have enough midwives...)

moved when pg, twice, no choice either time.

1st time with #1, I was 3m pg.
2nd time with #7, I was 7.5m pg.

so glad I never had to move with a new born.
I had a traumatic birth, massive episiotomy & foreceps delivery with DS1 and was in pain for ages. a move would have made had a nervous breakdown.

with DS6 I had biliary colic when he was just 6 weeks old (3 nights in hospital, passed gallstone), then had cholecystectomy when he was 3m old. I was not well physically and struggled mentally & practically (well, with 7 kids you would a bit, by default 🤣).
a move during those months would have finished me off.

You just don't know what kind of birth & complications you or your child might have.
What if you need a C-section or develop PND? or baby needs intensive or special care or a million other things?
And what of the move falls through? eek, just no.

I promise you, those early weeks & months can be so immense, even if everything with birth goes swimmingly.
but the last thing you'll want is worrying about moving and giving birth while everything is up in the air.

Definitely move before baby comes

no guarantee that moving with a 4m old will be easier btw.

I needed ELSC with DS4. the following few months were so awful Stephen King would want to curl up in a ball & cry.
so I'll just highlight one thing - when DS4 was 3 weeks old I had ridiculously bad mastitis. imagine a dinner plate sized, inch thick red swelling on your breast, 40°C fever and breastfeeding so painful even through nipple shield it was like someone massaging broken glass into your nipple.
trying to compensate for pain while feeding & sleep I developed severe pain in my left arm which took months of treatment to correct.
we had building work done while I was pg with him and had to move out for 9 weeks, only moved back 2 days befor he was born and that was nothing compared to the hell we went through after he was born.

I can't stress strongly enough that if you have a chance to move while pg please do.
otherwise you might want to wait for a good 6m at least

I moved with an 8 week old. Definitely definitely move when pregnant. We paid for both packing and moving, but 9 months down the line there are still a shedload of boxes that need unpacking. I always thought "I'll be able to do it when he's a bit older", but those weeks and months keep on passing without having any time to spare (my LO has only recently started napping alone and doing longer sleep stretches in the evening at 10 months).

You'll be able to nest just fine in your new house, and while your job is important to you now, when you get close to the end of pregnancy you may well be too knackered to care as much (I was the same - wanted to leave a great handover, but in my last two weeks I could only do the minimum as my brain was just fried)

I moved with a 4 week old baby. We'd wanted to move before he arrived but seller's solicitors dragged their feet about everything, and it took way longer than we'd expected.

Do not recommend it. We used a full packing service with the removal but it was still a nightmare, having to unpack everything and put it away with a tiny baby glued to me most of the time (didn't help that DH was extremely busy at work so I had to do way too much by myself). DS is almost 5 now and there are still some bits of the house that don't feel finished because I just never managed to sort it satisfactorily.

Before.
DD had awful colic for first 6 months and I had to feed her expressed milk upright. It meant expressing and sterilising bottles and constantly washing smelly sicky clothes. DS was easier, but he liked routine. Babies are more hours than a FT job.

@SockQueen
DS6 is almost 7 and I had just managed to sort through boxes labelled "random crap" that were hiding in the loft🤣
you've done well!

We completed on our house sale 1 week after DS was born.

We didn’t encounter any major issues whilst moving with a baby tbh!

@Enough4me

Before. DD had awful colic for first 6 months and I had to feed her expressed milk upright. It meant expressing and sterilising bottles and constantly washing smelly sicky clothes. DS was easier, but he liked routine. Babies are more hours than a FT job.

Agree with the last point entirely. I too have a full on job (doctor in a busy speciality) and I was very busy with work until I went on mat leave at 38 weeks. A baby is still harder though. It’s an amazing, enjoyable, best time of your life hard, but you just don’t get a break. After a really busy 13h shift at work, you still get to go home and be on ‘off mode’, even if just for a few hours. A baby doesn’t grant you that luxury just because you need to unpack, where as a job, no matter how busy, does!

I don’t say this to scare you OP, just I was 100% in the camp ‘my job is so hard a baby will surely be much easier!’ I can safely say, for me anyway, that assumption has proved to be wrong 😬

I moved country while pregnant and it was a lot easier than trying to do it with a new born baby in tow.

I moved/relocated while on maternity leave. DS was 3 and DD 6 months. We put te house on the market when DD was 4 weeks old.

It was fine. DH had to do all of the grunt work and I stayed with the dc at my Mils. Like you, I had a job at the time that was all consuming and I could not see another way forward.

It worked fine for us as I had the head space to think things through properly.

Defo when pregnant. I did it it was fine.

I'd move before baby cones

Comes*

Are you buying and selling? If so, it doesn’t work to your timeline, who knows when you’ll find a buyer, have an offer accepted on a place to buy and if there’ll be any hiccups along the way (people pulling out, survey issues). Have a look at some of the property forum threads, for a lot of people it’s taken longer than 5 months from offer accepted to completion, so it won’t necessarily be done by baby’s arrival (who could come early). Another consideration. If you know you definitely want to move, my advice would be to just market now. I put it off (wanted to move before pregnancy, then pandemic, baby in Nov) and I’m now here with a 7 month old still on market.

As for which I’d do, I think I’d still make the same choice to wait. My pregnancy was much tougher physically than having the baby, who I was driving around with from days old. No way could I vacate the house for viewings while pregnant, tidy up, go to other viewings. I was sleeping half the day.

Think this thread shows it’s so personal, best thing to do is be flexible. If you have to move, start the long process ASAP.

If you hate moving, I would do it now and then relax in your new house and focus on your new baby, the demands of parenting etc.

We moved when DS was 6 weeks old, it wasn’t awful but here is what helped:
Prepare as much as possible in advance - pack everything you don’t use often into boxes starting now and stick them somewhere out of the way.
Get a moving company who will do everything — ours moved all the furniture and boxes including emptying a cellar etc and also put large furniture together again at the other end. Also took away large packaging which was already removed on moving day - saves a couple of trips to the tip and makes the place look tidier. This means by the end of moving day, all furniture is set up and boxes are mostly in the right replace ready to be unpacked.
Get some childcare support - my mum came to stay the week before and the week after move day. This meant I could focus on packing and unpacking while she took care of DS and DH was at work.
Focus on unpacking the kitchen and bedrooms first, that way, as long as the kettle and toaster are out and the beds are made you can stop at any point you feel knackered!
Don’t leave any boxes packed, you’ll never get to them!

We moved with a 3yo and a 6week old. It would have been much easier while pregnant - I'd had a section so couldn't do any lifting and the first time I drove after giving birth was on the day of the move with tonnes of boxes in my car!

I think giving birth at the hospital you trust most is a huge factor.
Spend pregnancy doing everything you can to make the move easier ( decluttering etc) then you and baby stay elsewhere while the move happens, or focus on getting the house in order in a baby priority way, and just go for it.

Personally I'd aim to move later on in mat leave - Maybe around 6 months.

Only thing would be that you might miss out on building support networks, meeting people through baby classes etc if you move later.

Completely understand the job thing. I found mat leave so tedious mentally that I redecorated and refurnished much of the house when ds was around 5 months, then went back to work part time at 6 months.

I've done both; the move while pregnant was fine, but the one with a new baby helped tip me into post-natal depression. Having a baby changes the whole of your life so much, I wouldn't be dealing with any other major changes in that time if you can avoid it.

I’m currently pregnant and in the process of moving house.
I’m due in October and put our offer in at the end of April, looking at an August move so if you do want to move pregnant then you need to get a wriggle on!
If you move now you don’t technically have to declare your pregnancy. Once you have the baby there is no denying it and would be fraud not to admit that you have a dependent. Having a dependent will affect the amount that you can borrow; and assuming you plan to use your salary as part of the income that they base borrowing on, you will run into a load of questions about return to work / paying for childcare etc.
Basically, makes much more financial sense to move pre-baby.

I agree with MeadowHay. Hello 4 month sleep regression! DH and I were totally exhausted, baby would only sleep on me, was still recovering from birth injuries and trying to get established with bf. Moving around this time would have been impossible. It’s such an unknown what kind of birth/ recovery and baby you’ll have. So my vote is before too.

Used a full packing service with last house move last and was the best decision ever, took so much stress out of the move. Would highly recommend either way you decide.

Have you considered a new build as an option? Could move straight in and unpack and do a bit of nesting, not have to worry about decorating etc

I moved with a 6 week old - after a traumatic birth - many years ago. I don’t recommend it. Move beforehand if you can.

We’ve been looking to move since my 7 month old was born. I tried when she was about 3 months but to be honest, the prospect of even filling out the forms, getting the house tidied for the photographer (babies being so much mess, especially when you’re bfing!) was just too much.
She’s 7 months now and I finally feel like it’s doable now she doesn’t need to be attached to me for 22 hours of the day! I know it’ll be hard work but I definitely couldn’t have done it when she was under 6 months! She wasn’t a placed newborn though!