Tell me about your experience!! We just put our house on the market today and I'm already so overwhelmed! We have two kids, a 2 year old and a 10.5 month old and I SAH with them. Getting the house show ready is difficult enough (where to put all the kid stuff?! Can't shove them in a closet since they'll look there too!) without thinking about their transitions too!
My biggest worry is that they won't sleep in our new home. Did your kids go back to their sleeping habits in a new place quickly?
pomegranate / 3275 posts
Is it too late to stop the process? Just kidding (kind of)
We are about 10 days into our new home and the kids have transitioned pretty well. It has been very stressful, but it is looking up (I hope!).
First off, showing the house was probably the hardest part. Keeping the house show ready at the drop of the hat was so hard. And, all of our showings were always during nap time!!
In terms of sleeping habits, in the new house it has been fine! We slept in our old house while it was empty for three nights and one night in the new house empty. We made the big kids (4 and 2) "nests" and that made them happy. The baby (13 months) was in a pack n' play.
Once the beds were here, they slept even better. Sleep wasn't much of an issue.
Getting them into a routine, while unpacking, painting, hanging pictures, etc has been difficult.
It has been so terribly stressful and I hate moving (we had to due to DH's job). My 4 year old knows what is going on and wasn't happy about leaving friends, but my 2 year old has been ok. We occasionally have a very naughty moment with the kids, but they are processing all of this as well.
Good luck! If you need an ear to complain to, wall me! I get it.
grapefruit / 4800 posts
It was hard but not horrible. I got our realtor to hang a princess dress on the door to our 3 yo room and I got her room decorated and set up as similarly and quickly as possible. I had a lot of the big vinyl stickers and stuck them to window shades and rolled them up. We all slept in her room at least part of the night for the first week and she definitely woke up scared a few times and that first week. My baby was only six months and it didn't really affect her.
eggplant / 11716 posts
@MamaChin: What did you end up doing with all the kid stuff? We're toying around with putting our condo on the market this summer and moving elsewhere, but I think we'd have to rent a storage unit for a month or so to store all the extra "stuff" while the house is staged.
kiwi / 557 posts
We put a lot of our stuff (and a lot of DS's toys) into storage. There is no way I could've kept the house looking show ready with our usual loads around. We had our realtor request 3 hours notice for showings but it does not always happen and we didn't want to refuse any if we could help it. I was surprised by how many people request to see houses during nap time. Hopefully you have a relative, friend, or neighbor that will let you hang out during showings (we did not and it was a pain, especially with taking the animals out as well). As far as transitioning, DS did great. He refused to nap on actual moving day but that night with his crib and furniture set up there was no issue.
clementine / 830 posts
@Anagram: we got huge plastic bins and just plan on shoving stuff in and neatly stacking them in the basement for showings. Same thing with all the rooms, pretty baskets with lids for our crap to put in the closets.
@clover: I don't really have anyone near me either. My mom is 45 mins away and it's just not worth driving over there for one showing. I plan on lots of cars naps and target and yogurt outings. My poor dog will just have to sit in the car 
Glad to see everyone's kids transitioning well!!
blogger / coconut / 8306 posts
Our house is going on the market this spring (hopefully!) and we plan on storing stuff at my ILs. They generously offered us use of their basement (which is enormous) to store extra furniture and the kids toys.
I'm definitely worried about keeping the house show ready & finding somewhere to go at the drop of a hat! I imagine we will spend lots of time at the park this spring.
pear / 1614 posts
We moved when my DS was 6 mos old. We were buying but had rented before so showings weren't an issue. He had no problem transitioning, we had his crib set up by his naptime on moving day and I don't remember any problems. A good friend just sold her house after it was on the market for 3 mos and she has a 2 and 4 year old and she said the same thing about showings - everyone wants one during naptime.
persimmon / 1188 posts
We tried to minimize what we could but on showing days we would load up our cars with the bigger toys and stuff to make the house look more clear. We were in a townhouse condo so it was pretty cluttered once we had the baby. My son slept pretty well right away. We had 28 showings in 4 months and it was a real nightmare, but necessary.
grapefruit / 4584 posts
We moved this fall with a 4 month old and2 year old. While we didn't have to deal with showing our home, we still had the adjustments of being in several places before settling in our new home. Honestly other than jet lag (it was an international move), the adjustment was not as bad as I thought it'd be. I had a few boxes of kid things I made sure we're unpacked first, and brought along loveys/a few special toys every step of the way. We also focused on other fun things, like having grandparents visit it making time for special outings.
The best advice I have is just take any help you can get with the kids so you can get your place, and keep your expectations if how fast youll unpack low so you don't get frustrated with yourself if it takes awhile.
pear / 1696 posts
@MamaChin: We just moved 3000 miles two months ago with a 18 month old! He did awesome with the transition, no sleep issues, although he tends to be good sleeper anyway and we have a super consistent bedtime routine with white noise, etc.
My parents came over to our new house before we arrived and put up blackout shades and set up the pack and play so his room was sleep-ready when we got there. For a local move I would def suggest having the movers (or yourselves) load some essential kid stuff last and unload it first.
I would recommend getting rid of as much as you can. Get a storage unit to get some of the kid stuff out and then pay the moving company to pack everything for you. We used United, they were great.
pineapple / 12566 posts
We've moved a lot (internationally and domestically). DS never had a problem with sleep. DD had a problem when we moved when she was 6 months. But we also didn't get curtains in her room for a month, and it was summer, so it was daylight at like 3:50 am. 
Best tips are to get rid of as much as possible, hire out as much work as you can afford: packing, professional cleaning, moving, unpacking, etc. And then make it an adventure for your older LO. Get excited about all the new stuff and how great it will be. Visit the new place if you can, show him his new bedroom, new parks or whatever you think he would be interested in. When you actually move in, unpack and set up your LOs rooms first so they at least have a familiar place to play while everything else is being unpacked.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
The transition to our new house was great for sleeping, out of all the times my son had to sleep somewhere else/new. I think it helped because we were able to go to the house before we actually moved in and we showed him his bedroom several times.
Moving is a bear no matter when you do it
grapefruit / 4187 posts
I just did this! Buy a bunch of pretty baskets from homegoods to throw toys into. If that doesnt work pack some up in storage bins and rent out a storage unit.
As far as the move, we were moving 2.5 hours away so we had no choice but to keep ds with us all day. In the morning when we moved out i had his nanny take him to a museum until we were ready to go, then we jumped in the car and met the movers at our new home. The day went fine but it took us almost a month to unpack since ds was 16 months old and did not give us any downtime while awake. He took a few nights to adjust to his new room but it wasnt too bad. We kept his routine exactly the same as before and he caught on pretty quick.
apricot / 420 posts
We moved cross country this summer. As to the toy storage during showings, we just pared down what they could play with and put the rest in plastic bins in our outdoor shed. They never missed the extra toys. Our house was only on the market for 3 days so it wasn't too hard to find things to do during showings. Although I would plan on buyers spending more time than you think in your house during viewings. Our first showing took over 2 hours (when it was supposed to only last an hour). I ended up sitting in the car a couple houses up so I could see when they left.
I didn't notice any difference in sleep in the new house. We even lived in an apartment for 1 1/2 months before we got into our new house and I don't recall any sleep problems. I wouldn't stress about it, kids are pretty resilient. Good luck selling your house.
pear / 1593 posts
Bump - any new recent movers want to add their advice?
This is our first time selling with kids, and after just day one of showings, I'm exhausted trying to keep this place in order! FX for a busy weekend and offers.
clementine / 990 posts
We moved when DD was almost 2. She did pretty well. My mom kept her the day we moved and we set her room up first. I don't remember any issues. We got movers and it was money well spent. We also only moved just to a suburb. So it all got packed, moved and unpacked in an 8 hour day (I mean boxes in and out of the truck, not the whole house).
We're get ready to list and show this house. She's 5 now and struggling with the concept - worried that the "place we get won't let kids there" and that we won't be able to bring her toys, etc. It doesn't help that we're dramatically downsizing so the last month we've been selling tons of furniture, toys and stuff and emptying out rooms. For stuff we're keeping but need to put away for showing, we've been packing stuff up in bins and putting it in the garage and under stairs.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
@runnerd: Good luck!
We listed and sold our house last week! Luckily it was a quick offer.
One big thing we did was for every bathroom and in the kitchen I got cheap little plastic bins from the dollar store. We put all our toiletries etc in those. When we are home, I have the bin on the counter. When we were doing pictures/showings, we had cleared out space in the cabinet below the sink that we could set the bin right there on the floor.
We hung nice white towels. But we also set our day to day hand towels on the counter. Before showing we just threw all hand towels into the hamper.
Kids toys are mostly put away under their bed except for the 10 or so toys we have kept out in their play area in their storage cubes. We are really trying to only play with those toys or if we get out other toys we put them away.
Our garage ended up being our catch all space. We pulled up the rugs, threw them in the garage. Baby high chair, to the garage.
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