Relocations can be hard, doing it with a small child is even harder. How Well Will A Toddler Handle A Cross Country Relocation? Let’s find out.
How Well Will A Toddler Handle A Cross Country Relocation?
Out of all the development stages a child goes through, the toddler years are quite possibly the hardest. Your child is now at an age when they can communicate with you, even though their vocabulary is pretty limited, and they’re also just starting to learn how to handle their emotions. That makes for a trying time for everyone involved!
So if you decide now’s the perfect time in life to move across the country, should you really take the chance? Putting a toddler through one of the longest distance moves known to man is going to be difficult, especially if your child already struggles on longer journeys.
But thankfully, there are quite a few ways to make things easier on the whole family. And when you really think about it, moving with a toddler also comes with a couple of benefits!
They’re Unlikely to Leave Behind Friends
Before we get into the challenges, let’s start with the pros of relocating so far away when your kids are young. Number one: they’re not going to leave any friends behind and have to ‘start again’.
The toddler years tend to be between 1 and 3 – that means they’ve got plenty of time to work out who they want to have playtime with! We consider that a real pro, as many elementary and high school aged children can suffer in this regard. But seeing as you’ve only got a toddler in the backseat, you won’t have to worry about this at all.
You Won’t Have to Move Schools
Pro number two: You don’t need to take your toddler out of school and have to go through the hassle of registering them somewhere else. They’re not school aged yet, and might not even be pre-school aged, meaning this process is going to be a lot smoother.
Once you’re all settled into your new home on the other side of the country, you can start to look into the schools around you. That means you don’t have to be stressing about finding the best school for both your child’s academic abilities and personality while you’re also trying to stop your mother’s china from getting smashed!
Turn the Trip into a Vacation
If you’re going to be driving from your old home to your new one, why not take a few more days to turn the trip into a mini vacation? Kids love going on vacation! You can pack a tent in the back with you and camp out for a couple of nights, or you can check into a couple of hotels on the way and have dinner at local restaurants.
You’re going to need to break up the big banks of driving into smaller, more manageable chunks anyway – might as well make sure you’re enjoying yourselves at the same time! And this way, your kids won’t remember the trip as being super long and boring. Instead, they’ll remember how fun it was to travel and find an adventure in a new area they’d soon call home.
Schedule as Closely as Possible
So, how long is it going to take to get from point A to point B? Now’s the time to work it out and make sure you’ve got a tightly scheduled plan ahead of you. If you’re going to do as we recommend above and turn the trip into a vacation, this itinerary will matter more than ever. After all, you don’t want your items all turning up in the moving truck without you being there to unpack them!
The moment you know the move is for sure, get a checklist going. When have you got to be out of the old house and when do you need to pick up the keys to your new place? These are the two bookends of the time frame in which you’ve got to move.
Moving Chaos Can Be Very Disruptive
This is probably what you’re worried the most about. If you’re moving and familiar things are being packed up out of reach, how is your toddler going to react? It can vary from child to child, but mostly it’s the confusion of events that’s going to get your toddler acting out. When we don’t know what’s going on, we freak out! What can you do to prevent this?
Make Sure Your Toddler Gets Plenty of Your Time
Toddlers need stability. When you’re moving, that can be hard to provide. It’s why you should hire some movers to do the packing and transportation for you. If you’ve got a big house to pack out, this is a good idea anyway!
With a bit of help on hand, you can focus on making sure things are as normal as possible for your little one. You can make sure they get up and go to bed at the same time, and you have more space to talk about the changes going on in your lives with them. Toddlers can be surprisingly adaptable – they just need some time to get used to the idea!
Have a Bigger Toddler Car Bag Than Usual
It’s normal to take along a resource pack when you’ve got a toddler in the car. However, if you’re going cross country, you need to have a bigger bag on the go than you’ve ever dealt with before.
Make sure it’s filled to the brim with healthy filling snacks, new toys to play with, and a first aid kit, just in case there’s a bout of motion sickness. And remember, those snacks can be good for adults if you start getting hangry on the drive as well!
If you want to relocate across the country in the next few months, plan out the trip right down to the fine details. Taking a toddler on a 20+ hour drive can be a recipe for disaster, but if you give them enough of your time, make the trip fun and enjoyable, and pack plenty of snacks in the back seat, things will work out fine.
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