Moving Tips With A Family Of 4

If you have all been keeping up with my family and me on social media, then you would know that we have been busy moving our family of 4 into our new home!

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It has truly been a chaotic couple of weeks that resulted in me putting out my previous post 2 weeks late.

But it’s all good because I’m back and getting back into the groove of blogging.

The majority of my blog posts that I put out are based on real-life circumstances that we are currently going through.

And since moving and getting settled into a new home has currently been our life lately, it only seems right that I talk about it here.

As most of you know, I have a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old so we moved with 2 small children under the age of 4.

Which made moving even more chaotic.

Between packing and making multiple trips to our new home with them in tow, it was tough on our girls.

But we managed and after a week of moving, we are officially moved in and getting settled into our new home.

With that being said, I wanted to offer my readers a few tips on what has been like moving as a family of 4 with smaller children.

If you are interested in our experience moving as a family of 4, then just keep reading.

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How Do I Tell My Children That We Are Moving?

Before I get into some of my moving tips with our family of 4, let’s talk about this.

How do I tell my children that we are moving?

This is a reality that many parents have to face when moving with their children.

As I mentioned above, I have a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old.

Obviously, my 1-year-old doesn’t quite understand what is going on but my 4-year-old does.

We had already owned our previous home so we had to go through the process of selling our old home which meant that we would have to abruptly leave sometimes for home showings and open houses.

The same went for when we were looking for a new home.

We went to go to see several houses before ultimately deciding on the one that would work for our family.

Like most 4-year-olds, my daughter was asking a lot of questions.

She wanted why we had to leave our house so suddenly.

Whose house is this Mommy?

Are we going to look at more houses today, Mommy?

Very innocent questions, but enough to let me know that she is paying attention and wants to know the sudden interest in looking at houses.

If you are familiar with my approach to my inquisitive 4-year-old, then you know I’m big on talking to her about what is happening around her.

When I was pregnant, I talked to her about becoming a big sister and that she would be sharing a room with her.

• Read More: Preparing My Toddler For A New Sibling
• Read More: Preparing My Toddler To Share A Room With A Baby

I have noticed that my 4-year-old can become anxious when she doesn’t know what is going on and starts asking a billion questions.

So what is helpful for her is telling her what is going on or what is happening so I do my best to do so.

Some other tips that are helpful when discussing moving with younger children are:

• Speaking positively about the move
• Involving them in the moving process
• Allowing them to process their own feelings about the move
• Remaining supportive throughout and after the moving process

Now that we have an idea of how to talk to our kiddos about moving, let’s get into my tips for moving with my family of 4.

Moving Tips With A Family Of 4

Give Yourself Time To Move & Pack

My very first tip when it comes to moving with smaller children is to give yourself time to move and pack.

This is actually my 4th time moving within 7 years and two of those times with children.

I have experienced having to move within a span of 24 hours and I have also experienced having a couple of weeks to move.

Out of both of these experiences, I definitely preferred having 2 weeks to move as opposed to 24 hours.

And now that I have kids, I have learned that giving yourself time to properly pack and move is imperative to have a seamless move.

I know for some this is not always feasible but if you have the option, try to give yourself at least a week or two to move.

With this move, we were given a week and a half and our new home was only 10 minutes from our old home.

Every day we would pack up our vehicles and make a trip to the new house to take our things there.

By the end of the week and a half, we had everything moved over and were completely moved into the new house.

If you are moving to a different city or state, you want to have at least 2 to 3 weeks to pack because you will likely be moving everything within a day or two.

So if you can, try to give yourself time to pack and move.

Declutter Before Moving

Once you know that you are moving and have gotten the official move-in date, it is time to start packing, but there is something that you need to do before packing.

And that is to declutter.

The worst thing you can do is take things that you know you won’t be keeping to your new space.

So the solution to that is to do a proper decluttering session beforehand.

What we did was create several piles of things that we knew we longer wanted.

We had a pile for:

• Donating
• Selling
• Trash

All the things that we wanted to donate were set in the garage and on the last day of moving, we took everything in that pile to our local Goodwill.

Things that we knew that we could sell were set aside and put into a plastic bin to take to the new house and be sold once we moved.

And obviously, anything that we wanted to throw away was put into the trash.

Decluttering makes packing a whole easier because you are actually packing what you want to take and not just random items that you think you might use.

If you are trying to figure out where to start when decluttering, then check out this post below.

• Read More: Where To Start Decluttering When You Are Overwhelmed

Utilize Storage Bins For Packing & Moving

The first thing everyone wants to do when they know they are going to be moving is to start buying boxes.

Which is exactly what we did the first couple of times we moved.

I mentioned above that we have moved 4 times already and something we learned is that while getting boxes are great for moving, they are not so great for people who move frequently.

We are looking for a home that we can stay in long term, but we haven’t quite felt that way with a home yet.

Even with the new home that we just purchased, we absolutely love it and know that it will work for our family now.

But we also know that this is will not be our forever home and that hopefully in the next 3 to 5 years, we can reevaluate where we are and what our family looks like, and begin looking for that home that we truly desire.

If you are in the same boat as us and know that this move is not the last move, then getting storage bins might be an option that you may want to consider.

Storage bins work similarly in regards to boxes such as having a large space to pack a lot of items, categorize rooms, and being efficient when moving.

But the biggest difference is their ability to be reused multiple times.

We invested in storage bins this time around and I highly recommend them for families who move frequently.

Pack During Naps/When Kids Are In School

Now that you have decluttered and grabbed some storage bins, it is time to get to start packing.

I found that it was the easiest to pack when my girls were at school or napping.

As you all know, my oldest daughter started preschool so she is there pretty much the majority of the day during the week.

And my younger daughter stays home with me during the day but she still takes 2 naps during the day.

When she would nap, I would take that time to start packing up and taking things down in our old home.

I would aim to get as much as I could get done within both of her naps so that way when my husband got off work and my older daughter got out of school, all we had to do was load up the vehicles and take over what I had packed that day.

This strategy worked really well for us because our new home was only 10 minutes away and it allowed us to pack a little bit at a time.

Even if you are moving further away, you can still take this time to pack when your kiddos are sleeping or at school.

Keep A Box Full Of Toys Available

When you are in packing mode, it’s easy to just start packing up everything, but with smaller children, you may want to leave something out to entertain them.

This is a great tip that I picked up from The Multitasking Mom.

As much as I tried to pack as much as I can while my girls are asleep or in school, they won’t always be.

So when they are awake or at home while I’m packing, I have to find ways to keep them entertained.

What we did was have a box of toys that we kept out in our old house for the girls to play with while we packed up everything else.

This would keep them mostly entertained while my husband and I would pack and clean up.

You can save this box for the last day of your move so that way when you officially move to your new place this box of toys can still keep them entertained while you unpack.

Have A Small Farewell Party For Old Home

And my last moving tip is to have a small farewell party at your old home to say goodbye.

I say party because someone may want to throw a party but we personally did something very simple that only included us 4.

Leaving a place that we have been comfortably living in for the past 3 years can be tough.

And I can only imagine how it must feel for my oldest daughter.

Even though she is excited to be in our new home, our previous home is the home in which she spent all of her toddler years.

When we moved into our townhouse 3 years ago, my daughter hadn’t turned 1 yet, wasn’t walking or talking, and it was just her.

And as we depart this home, she is now a walking and talking preschooler and a big sister.

Many changes occurred at our old home so we decided to give it a proper goodbye.

What we did was order food to eat in our old home one last time, then we all thanked it for the years it gave us, and lastly said farewell before walking out the last time.

Very simple but it felt right to say goodbye instead of just up and leaving.

Your Turn

Well, those are all of the moving tips that we used moving our family of 4. I want to hear from you all now. What are some of the moving tips that you all use with your families when you are moving? Especially if you are moving with smaller children. Let me know in the comments and while you are still here, check out my previous post below. Until next time!

• Read More: What I Got My 4 Year Old For Her Birthday

Love,

Just Jass