5 Good Lessons Learned from A Hectic Family Move

Moving houses is a stressful experience, even when well-planned. There’s just something about packing up your life and settling elsewhere that is in its very definition unsettling. I am also a bit of an introvert, making my space extra important to my mental peace. So even if I am excited about a move to a better space, I’ll still be feeling uprooted for at least a few days. 

Whatever I felt as a single person, or even with only my partner, is nothing compared with the craziness of moving with a young child though. Granted our moving process was a bit less planned out, but it still was a very different experience to what we’ve had in the past. Here are some things we learned, so fellow parents can avoid our pitfalls: 

Plan Your Timeline

Many of us move according to deadlines: lease expiring, starting a new job, starting or ending an academic year, etc. I think many of us have been in a frantic move: with one lease expiring and the next lease starting in the same day. This very quick move can work reasonably if you’re just trying to coordinate your own (hopefully minimal) belongings. However, it’s a little different when you have more coordination to do among a family. 

In our case, we were hoping to move before the start of the academic year, but between a later closing date on our new home and our travel plans that did not happen. Luckily, we had family members to help with child care (joys of having a 1 year old!) and feeding our cat. Obviously we weren’t in between lease deadlines, but we were rushing to list our old home to sell. In NYC, the second major real estate sales push of the year is in early September and we were running late. So I (stupidly) tried to move within a two week window—but that included painting and cleaning our new home while packing our old home…OURSELVES. The timing ended up being far too tight. This brings me to my most important tip: 

Hire Help

Don’t do it all yourself. Even, if like my husband, you have an incredible handy skill set, consider the time involved for such a project. Packing (well) takes a lot more time than you think. Cleaning takes time. And painting definitely takes time—and plan to run into at least one time consuming hiccup! 

The one resource you cannot get back is your time. And if you use your time toward one task, that also means that there is something else that you will not spend that time on. In a family situation that means if you spend your time painting then that is time you will not spend with your toddler or on your career. In fact, both my husband and I had to take time off work for this painting and cleaning. Embarrassingly, we hadn’t packed a thing—my father went in and packed nearly half of our apartment the night before our scheduled move! 

So, please hire painters—especially if you have a large space to paint. We had six rooms to paint. Ceilings and walls—the entire space. Painting preparation takes more time than actual painting—you need to clean the surfaces and tape edges. You might need to use primer. You also need time to choose your paint colors! It can be an involved process, even without surprise holes to patch in the wall!

Please also hire a cleaner and movers to assist. Have a cleaner clean the new place before moving in. We did hire someone to deep clean the kitchen and one bathroom as we moved in and I’m still super grateful we did! We also hired movers to move the big furniture items: the sofa, bed, crib, etc. However, that still meant that we made several trips with other items with our car. 

Between movers, cleaners, and painters, please consider your time and energy levels and chose the options that work best for you and your finances. But do not plan to do it yourself unless you intend to spend a significant portion of several weeks working intensely. It took us at least two intense weeks to paint…and that included massively late nights, at least one week of missed work, and an all-nighter for multiple people. 

Pack Some in Advance or Have the Movers Pack For You

When you are looking over your timeline, make sure you start packing earlier than you think you should. This is especially true if you have a lot of things that have piled up over a few years. Not only are you trying to pack things in an organized and careful fashion (labeling boxes and bubble-wrapping), but it’s helpful to also weed out the things that you no longer use or need. After all, why pack more than you need to? You can have a fresh start in your new home without the unnecessary clutter. 

If you are short on time, you can also hire your movers to pack items for you. Obviously, fragile heirlooms might be better off with you wrapping them personally. Everything else, however, movers are more than capable of packing. This can be a lifesaver (and sleep saver) in a time crunch when you need to spend energy and time on other tasks. 

Have Things Set Up Before Introducing Your Child To The Space 

If you happen to have a young child, you know that they thrive on routine. Obviously moving can interrupt that routine, but that doesn’t mean that they have to face an empty room at the other end. Ensure your child’s room is clean and relatively set up before you introduce them to their new home. Even being able to see some familiar items, such as their crib/bed and a few toys can make a huge difference in the transition. 

Luckily, I made sure that my son’s room was the one room set up for the move. He toddled in, blinked, and never looked back! He had a very easy move. 

Don’t Forget to Plan Out the Move for Your Pets

Unfortunately, I can’t say our cat had an easy move. In fact, our cat suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in transit to the new house. It was likely due to an unknown heart condition that would’ve happened regardless of the move, but we still wonder if we had timed things better if he would’ve survived. Due to everything going on—the painting and last-minute packing—we weren’t able to give him the attention he deserved in his last two weeks of life. And supervising the packing of everything into boxes probably caused him some stress. 

While we had ensured several rooms of the new house were clean and safe for our cat to use while he acclimated to the new space, we had not accounted for the stress of packing and moving to impact him. That will always be a regret for us—so please think about this while you move your furry children. 

Moving as a family is an entirely different scenario than moving yourself or as a couple. It requires a lot more planning and, ideally, some help. I hope you have a much more relaxed move 🙂