When you move house it can be very easy to forget yourself and your family’s needs and wants, there is so much going on that you can get pre-occupied and caught up in it all and forget to do the simple things like eat and drink. Children are often difficult when it comes to moving home, especially if they oppose the move, and can sometimes act out, pets become scared and nervous and may misbehave and/or urinate and everyone is generally more stressed and more uptight.

Help to reduce the amount of arguments and tears that are shed during your move to the N16 area, familiarise yourself with the following:
Make sure you keep yourself at the top of your game, you need to eat and drink in order to have the energy to complete the task at hand, and not ensuring you satisfy your most basic of needs will lower your mood causing you to get angry more easily and be more tense than unusual-this added to the stress of moving home creates a time bomb just waiting to go off. Make sure you have food and drinks, and warm, and waterproof clothing for later in the day or if it rains. As difficult as it may be with everything going on, try to be extra patient with your family, especially the children who may be having a hard time dealing with the move.

Your children might not react well to being told that they are moving home, especially if this means that they are moving into a new area which will mean for them a new school, new friends and a loss of most of the things that they know. Even if your child is staying at the same school, they may not handle moving home well, they will have come to think of the house as their safe area where nothing can hurt them, especially if it is the only house they have ever lived in. Your child will have a lot of worries and concerns so try to make the time to talk to them and put their mind at ease, give them a voice and an opinion as much as possible in the decisions that are being made. When you start to pack up the house try to pack your child’s room last so that they have their comfort zone for as long as possible and so they keep themselves entertained with their toys and their own space, then when you arrive at the new house try to settle your child into their room as quickly as you can. If your child can stay with someone else while you move your home, this would be ideal, if not then try to pack your child a bag with some food and drinks, some entertainment, some warm clothes and a comforter if they have one.

Pets don’t take well to being moved from one home to a new one, especially things like cats and dogs that are territorial. Moving home has proven to be stressful enough to change a pets personality completely, making them naughtier or more afraid, and sometimes has meant animals have ‘run away’ in search of finding their own home that they know and they own. While you are loading the van and unpacking your home you will need to ensure you lock your pets away in a secure room with food, water and blankets, when you are ready to move your pet put them in the carrier and make sure they are properly secure. Keep your pets locked away inside your new home for a couple of weeks until they have gotten used to their new home.