Tips for moving abroad with young kids?

[silverpetals96]

Hi,
Wanted to know if anyone else has moved abroad with a largish family and might have some tips. It’s me (F 28 English), partner (M 28 Swedish) and our four young children (all under 5). We’re moving to Sweden to live closer to his family this autumn and for work. It’s been a nightmare trying to figure out how to get there. We’re not sure whether to drive there or take the plane. Obviously we’ll have to get our cars over but we’d rather take them ourselves. One of us would rather not be lumbered with four small children at an airport. If you’ve experienced something small would love to hear any advice or tips!
(Info, our baby girl the youngest cries a lot and does not like planes/cars or any type of transport and my son is very hyper and constantly loves to run off, my other two, his twin sister and my 2 year old daughter are a lot more mellow and tend to just stick by us, only one of us can travel with the kids as the other one will be with our dogs and cat/dogs in cargo and cat in cabin)

Can family/a grandparent come help for the trip?

That would ideal. Unfortunately his family are very busy and don’t travel much these days and I’d never trust my own family with any of children.

We did this exact move last year, but with two children. We all flew over with some essentials, I then flew back home and did four trips in our campervan to get everything else over, on our last trip I took our pets as well. I moved about eight weeks after them. If your cat is flying in the cabin who are you flying with of interest, and why does that prevent that person sitting with the children?

Wow that’s a lot! Well done for managing that. We want to do it all in one trip. We have to stay with the kids in the UK for a bit longer due to certain reasons. But we’re sending the animals over to his parents to look after and he’ll be there for the arrival of all our furniture etc. Unfortunately due to my youngest being under 1 I’ll need to be with her and it would be too much for him to take any of the kids and animals.

Who paying for the move? If its you, would it not be etter to sell the cars here and buy new ones in Sweden?

You have a lot of young kids and animals to move all at once (plus I imagine a lot of luggage?). It may not be realistic to only fly over once. Maybe DH could go once to see his parents and drop off the animals then fly back and help you with the kids?

We moved with older kids and just 1 cat. DH moved first for work then when all our furniture left he came to help with tgat and flew back with the cat. I then went to visit family then flew later with the DC.

Next sumemr we re moving back and I will be flying with the 2 DC and the cat which I anticipate being annoying cos the DC will stress about how happy/unhappy the cat is the whole 9 hour flight (plus airport wait times).

OK so you WANT to do it all in one trip, but you've got 4 under fives, multiple animals (you haven't specified exactly how many of each cats and dogs) and neither of you can do the children alone.
So, realistically, you do need another person.
Has one of you got a helpful and good with the children sibling who would like a holiday in Sweden helping you get settled and who would travel over with you? Or very close friend who might do the same?
Or could you even find the money to pay a temporary nanny to do the trip with you and stay a week?
I'm really just brainstorming here, I have never done anything remotely like it and it sounds difficult. But then just having 4 under fives sounds difficult without trying to move countries. Essentially I think you need to think how you can get help, if you must do it in one trip. And as you have the children I can see how at least for one of you it's one trip because you can't be ferrying them or even one or two of them back and forth, so one of you needs to get there with the children and that be it, even if the other one does more than one trip.
I'm just thinking out loud here. What a task you've set yourselves!

At this this point he’s probably going to drive the animals over (two dogs/1 cat) and a bunch of luggage. I’ll probably take our other car with the kids and luggage. Will probably spend the night at a friends house halfway. The drive will take just under a day which isn’t too bad.

You can’t possibly drive from Uk to Sweden in a day when you’re a solo driver! It’s 2000km, involves a ferry crossing. Are you crazy? He needs to drive over with the animals then fly back to share your drive over with the children.

Someone didn’t read the part where I said we’re spending the night at a friends halfway. And yes I’ve done very distance before alone. It’s just a ferry it’s not a cruise. Well I will be and no he certainly won’t be doing that. It’s going to be busy the other end. Try to learn to read information properly in the future. All of this I’ve already mentioned in my posts.

!!!!!! and someone should have thought this through themselves rather than coming online and being incredibly rude to people who are trying to help.

I have done a number of international relocations.

Is this a permanent relocation or a short term 2-3 year relocation? If permanent have you considered selling the cars in the UK?Driving with the wheel on the wrong side gets tiring, resale value of a rhd car in Sweden will be lower come replacement time, and their may be maintenance challenges along the way.

If 2-3 years, then keeping them may make good sense.

Sadly, relocating with young kids is incredibly challenging - especially when condensed into a single day.

The only suggestion is that you leverage the family that you are moving nearer to as much as possible - can they not arrange their calendars to spend time with their nieces/nephews for a day or two? Can you not schedule the move for a time when they have a day off?

The simplest way is for one parent to fly over with the kids - it's only a 2 hour flight - and the other parent to drive a one way rental / cheaply bought van over full of stuff alone. If you need to bring the cars then one parent would do these luggage runs by car, or settle and drop kids with family and both parents drive full cars over.

Either way, it won't be easy. At least its only a short haul flight!

They were rude. So just giving it back. Not sure where you come in.

That’s good advice. Thank you for sharing!

Why are you taking cars over and not selling and getting new ones ? If uk cars is there not import tax/wrong side of road etc ?

chioose an internarional school where main subjects are taught in english but swedish also taught. cambridge and pearson qualifications; igcse and a level are equivalent to the uk ones so try to use a school that follow cambridge or pearson.

not necessarily for temporary import and wrong side of the road makes no difference. i had my car from uk in turkey for years

British cars are crap in Scandinavian. I would sell them. If you bring them you might pay extra taxes for import. I don't know about Sweden but Denmark it is pretty expensive to bring cars.

We have paid a moving compagny every time we have moved country. We have moved with 2-3 children.
Different expat friends have rented a van and done the move themselves. It make sense to drive the pets over.

I wouldn't go by car with four young children on my own. I would chose an airline. It is less than a 3 hours flight from UK to Sweden depending on departure/arrival airports.
I would travel two adults. I would pay a nanny or ask a sibling/grandparent/friend to help if husband was on the road with the pets.

Wow you’re so rude.

Ah ok, where I live you would have to pay large import tax fees and the steering wheel on the other side would be a nightmare for car parks where you need to take a ticket to get in

😂😂😂 someone needs a G&T and a lie down!

Why bother taking the cars and furniture? I would start a fresh. Especially with 4 kids, 2 dogs and a cat.