House move. How long to keep cat indoors?

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Moved in yesterday. My cat is a very nervous 6 year old chap. We have had him since a kitten and he has only ever known our previous house.
We are keeping him in one room atm with his litter tray, food and water- )but historically he will only drink from taps- so I am not concerned about dehydration ), pet container and familiar fabrics from old house. He is naturally pretty out of sorts.
Any tips please?🙂

Sorry- I meant I am concerned about dehydration.

Everything I read said keep them in for three weeks, I think? But we only managed about 7 days before ours was absolutely climbing the walls and driving us mad waking us up in the middle of the night to play with him. So we let him out then.

My sil's cat skidaddled as soon as an opportunity presented itself. Sil had only been in the new house two days ( they had been living in her DP's flat for a month)
Cat was kept inside and seemed happy enough, but a door was left open and whoosh! she was gone.

It's been two months now and she has been sighted around the village, but she is very wary and no one get near her. Also she was adopted by sil as a feral kitten, so is used to fending for herself, we've seen doorbell footage from various people around the village and she looks well fed.

We even notified the new owners of sils old house in case she turned up, but it was a longshot as sil moved an hour away!
Not giving up hope though, hopefully when she has had enough of her 'adventures' she will return !

ive always stuck to one week, then after that carry them outside for few mins to look around and do that for a couple of days. Then just leave the door open before due a feed, let them wander outside but go out with them and keep my eye on them. After 5-10 mins tempt them back with food.

see how they get on.

Probably 4 weeks to be safe. We let our cat out too early when we moved and he got lost and was missing for 2 years. We got him back due to being microchipped. He was about a mile away.

You don't t have to shut him in one room

I carried my new cat briefly outside via the kitchen door, around the back of the house and in via the sitting room, after three days. The next day I took her all over the back garden and back in. The day after, I unlocked her cat flap and let her roam freely. She initially stayed fairly close to home, but soon started exploring the fields behind the garden, and mousing in the trees along the burn at the edge of the farm.

I don't really get the carrying the cat outside thing. Surely they need to rub themselves on the threshold, garden fence, etc, so they can use the scent to get home again?

When we first let DCat outside we were out there too, but didn't carry him!

Vet recommended 4 weeks but I think we only managed 2 with our very outdoorsy cat. He is neutered, chipped and not generally a huge roamer though.

I kept my cats in for a month. Then sat in the garden with them so they could sniff out their new environment.

Thanks everyone. Mine managed 2 days before he got out. He was fine though. It is a culdesac so he just outside the house. There is very low traffic of course which is good.