run out of womb

... learning how to be a mum from scratch

Thursday 3 March 2016

Moving house with a baby: top tips

"Moving house with a baby" sounds weird. Because you're hardly gonna leave them at the old pad, right? But since moving house is supposed to be up there with Most Stressful Thing To Do, Ever, and having a young baby is no picnic either, doing them both at the same time is ... calm and relaxing, right?

Well, that's what I told myself before we moved home last week. I knew it would be busy and tiring - but I focused on Pinteresting interiors and dreaming about making a new nursery rather than, uh, the actual moving thing. 

But I've learnt! And here are my been-there, done-that, and-missed-the-sleep tips on moving house with a baby - plus a list of things to buy ahead of time if you're doing so soon.

TIPS

1) Get help. You might have moved yourself in the past, but add a baby into the mix and removals firms are immediately amazing value. If you can, doing the packing yourself is a good way to cut the cost. We packed in the evenings leading up to Move Day.

2) Sort babysitting for the day. I'm still feeding tiny man but with some expressed pouches and my totally brilliant mum, he was looked after so we could get on with shlepping boxes and working out what went where.

3) Pack a 'weekend suitcase', and keep it with you. Imagine you're going away for a weekend with your baby, and put all the necessities for doing so in a suitcase. That way, even if you can't work out what your carefully-labelled boxes actually contain and have no idea where the one filled with gro-bags / sleepsuits / Calpol is, you'll have what you need for the first few days. 

4) Food - if your baby is weaned, don't forget to prepare food in advance - and probably buy some pouches too as you'll be too rushed to start pureeing new things. Keep milk supplies to hand too - and don't forget an epic stash of goodies for the grown-ups too. Gotta keep the energy levels up...

5) Get your baby's room ready first once you've got the keys to the new place. Put up their old cot, black-out blinds (see below) if there aren't any, plus any mobiles/cuddly toys/etc that they're used to. A good night's sleep for them on that first evening will mean you can crack on and avoid exhaustion too...

Moving House Shopping List


Sure, you're going to need a lot of stuff. Probably even including a trip to Ikea, ugh. But here are some things we found vital right from the start:

1) Gro Blind.

Sellers often pack up their curtains when they move - if your new pad is going to have bare windows, a black-out blind might be a vital purchase for baby zzzzzzzzzzs. We packed two Gro Anywhere Blinds - and they're epic. The blind attaches directly to the window with suction cups, you can size it to your window (as long as it's no bigger than 130cm x 198cm: if so, you'll need more than one) with Velcro, and it comes in a travel bag (we'll definitely be packing this on our next holiday and avoiding ropey-hotel-curtain-itis.) We also installed a Gro Light, which we couldn't use in our old flat and LOVE - at a flick of a switch you can go from full lights on to gentle LEDs for a night-feed: much easier than inevitably flashing the iPhone torch right in the babe's face.. again.

2) Safety stuff.

Even though you might be thinking of a gazillion things you need to buy for your house, if your baby's on the move they will be desperate to explore it too... So if you can, pack a load of safety equipment like a stair gate ready for pronto installation. We went for BabyDan's Guard Me gate - and were so impressed that we've snapped up most of their other baby-proofing items too. Post to follow!


3) Food. 

The baby's needs are covered above, but what about yours? Do an online supermarket shop to arrive the morning after you move in - and if you're in the UK, I'd recommend organising an ingredients delivery service for the first week too. In this first week, I've wanted to use every spare nap time to sort out a room of the house, not spend hours cooking - so our HelloFresh box has been fantastic. We've had goats' cheese and leek tarts one day and Penang curry the next - they've taken under half an hour, where without HelloFresh we'd have been reeeeally sick of supermarket pizzas by now. They're our moving week must-have! (And reminded me of work as I wrote about the founders here aaaages ago).


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6 comments

  1. Shifting from one place to another is definitely a tough task for us. Especially when we have a baby; we used to take preventive steps in order to skip accidents. Here in this article we can get important steps on moving house with baby and hope while following these steps we are able to take very good care of our baby.
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  5. This guidance is really good. While working in some professional Moving Companies Toronto, I've noticed that about 80% of people moving with a baby/kids do not realize how stressful it is. First of all for the baby. So, getting a babysitter for the moving day (at least!) is essential! Same advice can be recommended for moving with pets. Thanks for the article.

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