Toddler not coping well with house move

[ProssecoParent]

We’ve recently moved houses, and my 2 year old toddler has been losing her shit. Last night she was up till 3am just screaming constantly for her daddy and then woke up at 6am for the day. Today she’s obviously overtired and has been non stop throwing tantrums I don’t even recognise my child. Shes launching stuff across the room, she’s hitting us, she’s not listening to anything we say. It’s been brutal whilst trying to unpack and do things around the house. I’m trying to be patient and understanding but I’m going insane. It’s been just screaming and screaming constantly. I honestly didn’t even think it would affect her like this. Has anything else gone through this? How do you help your toddler to calm down

When you say recently, how recently? When we moved one of us took the toddler out all day and the other cracked on with house stuff. Trying to split yourselves and do stuff around the house with them there just seems to lead to them feeling very unsettled and pushed out and really demanding that attention back again!

One of you needs to focus on the unpacking whilst the other focuses just on the toddler and takes them out all day. IDK how old yours is but we moved a lot when DD was a toddler/preschooler (expat stints abroad, then when finally returned home building work we couldn’t live through) and not once have we ever attempted any packing/unpacking with her present because it almost certainly would have been a disaster! Probably a bit late now but I’ve always prioritised her stuff on moving day so her room is normal pretty much straight away to avoid feeling unsettled. Then the following days we’d take off work and if she wasn’t at nursery DH would tag team taking her out whilst the other cracks on. The idea being she’d be knackered at bedtime from a busy day and would have had plenty of attention means no need to seek it through negative behaviour. Seemed to work for us anyway!

As with almost everything with toddlers, it’s a phase, it will pass.

But yes, one needs to do the house, one needs to do the toddler, and swap!

My son was 2 when we moved. No tantrums but he did take to peeing in the corners of his room for quite some time. 🙄

Poor kid (and you!). She will settle but I’d try lots of validation as she probs can’t express and might not even know why she feels bad, but “it’s hard moving house, do you miss the old house” etc, and take her to familiar places. We slept on our toddlers floor for a few nights to make her feel secure. Good luck, hopefully tiredness is amplifying it all and once she settles and sleeps better it’ll pass

We left our dc (4 & 2) with my parents for 2 nights when we moved house.

The dc saw the previous house being packed up, and slept on mattresses on the floor with us during the packing, but on the day of the move my parents collected them from pre-school and they stayed with my parents until we came to fetch them. We prioritised getting the dc's shared bedroom set up in the new house before they came in. Although there was a bedroom for each of them in the new house, they had been sharing in the old house and we tried to keep things consistent. Also, we put all the moving boxes that we had not yet unpacked in the unused bedroom (and the garage and the shed!) so that there would be minimal upheaval when the dc came to their new home.

They settled in very well.

I understand that your situation is a bit different, but can you create some normality for your dc? The change is clearly distressing them. Not just one change, but constant change as you get through the unpacking. Can they stay with a relative, if they are used to sleeping there? Or can one of sleep at the relative with dc, and come to your new home during the day to unpack while dc stays at relative?

Alternatively, one of you has to take dc out for the day while the other unpacks only as much as can be put away during that time. When dc comes home, the focus has to be on calm consistency for them. Can you spend a day putting as much as possible out of sight, so that what dc sees and moves through does not change any more?

our families are on holiday and we’ve done everything by ourselves, it’s been a crazy week trying to do it all whilst trying to be good parents. If they were here this would’ve been so much easier as they would’ve stayed at theirs and helped us out a lot! It’s hard unpacking things without my husband with me as he’s been building all the furniture back up whilst I’ve been trying to get everything out of boxes mostly stuff that we need for daily use and for the girls. Girls are both teething and just so upset and I’m constantly chasing after them as nothing is baby proofed yet. Just exhausted and want this all to be over but it’s proving to take a loooong time to get anything done