Advice: moving house before or after baby is born?

Hi all,

Well we just got some annoying news. The place we have been renting is going up for sale, which is iritating, we've only been here 7 months and took a 12 month lease on purpose cause we didn't want to worry about moving anytime soon!:wall:

Anyways, not much we can do about it, but the real estate has given us a couple of options:
Stay out til the end of the lease (august) when bubs will be about 3 months old, and look for a new place as usual,
OR
We can look for a place starting now, as long as we give our current agent 2 weeks notice, we won't lose our bond or anything.

I have 5 weeks til bubs is due, so even if we found somewhere this week, it gives us a couple of weeks before she arrives to move and unpack. Im just not sure whether its better to look now, or wait til we have bubs and then start looking...

So my question is, who has moved just before/just after having a baby, which did you think is preferable? Doing it while preg or with a little baby? Please help me out as we haven't got much time!!

We moved when Sam was two months old. It was hell. But I seriously doubt it would have been any better moving before he was born - I couldn't do much as I had to keep stopping to feed him or put him to sleep, but at least I could do something as he was no longer an enormous bump attached to the front of me making it all but impossible to move. I think moving is just hell no matter what the circumstances! And I'm still convinced moving when we did was better than trying to pack and move with a mobile child...

BW

I'm moving this friday and it hasn't been terribly fun doing all the packing, but I think it would be worse if I already had a little one. Plus, it means we can play the pregnancy card and not have to do any of the lifting etc...

I think in any situation. moving is a big pain in the butt, lol.

I'm moving this friday and it hasn't been terribly fun doing all the packing, but I think it would be worse if I already had a little one. Plus, it means we can play the pregnancy card and not have to do any of the lifting etc...

I think in any situation. moving is a big pain in the butt, lol.

I moved whilst I was at the end of the 2nd trimester of my pregnancy. This involved receiving all our furniture from Australia (we live in the UK) - the packing had been done before I was pregnant.

We are going to have to move in the next few months again, and DD is currently 3 months old now.

If I think about moving during pregnancy - even late pregnancy - compared to say moving now with DD at 3 months or the thought of moving when we have to when DD is anything up to 6 months or so, I can honestly say that I would prefer to move during pregnancy. It would be more difficult with DD now, and it will be when we do move.

Even though I was slow and unwieldy and uncomfortable, and it wouldn't be easy, I could do things in my own time, at a pace that suited me. Now DD is priority and her needs take a lot of time (to be expected!) and the tiredness I feel now is much more than when I was heavily pregnant. Harder to pack when more tired! Harder to pack when DD needs me more hours in the daytime than she is asleep during the daytime (a recent development, happening at roughly 3 months! ;)) - I will have to be packing at night.

Another thing to consider is how the move would impact your child once they are born. By 3 months many babies are starting to really get attached to a routine and familiar things (mine certainly is) and moving house could be a big upheaval that leaves them very unsettled. I'm preparing for that possibility when we move. Being able to not have that stress/worry/or even possibility because you were still pregnant might be helpful.

As BW said, it's hard work either way - hell - it's hard work when you're not pregnant or have a young infant, but I would choose doing it pregnant over doing with a 3 month old baby. In saying that, my pregnancy was complication free (aside from minor GD) and I felt quite good physically heavily pregnant.

HTH,

Miss C

I have done moving with kids twice. We had family to look after the girls. I was pg the 1st time, and I suffered for it for the next week, even though I tried to avoid doing too much, I ended up very sore. That was a move about 20 minutes away and was pretty easy because we had people around who could easily do a little bit and then go about their day. Our second move was a big one. I wasnt pg officially (pre conception but the cycle I fell pg) I took the girls out the day the movers uplifted our things and DH supervised the movers. They had done the packing the day before. And on the day they delivered to our new house DH took the girls out while the movers got eveything out of the truck and unpacked.

If you have someone available to look after DD for you or to help DP with the move then do it post baby, because then you can still do little bits without hurting yourself. Do start looking for a house now though, and if you find the perfect one and get approved early enough then you may need to go out on the day of the move so as to remain out of the way.

Thanks ladies...
The thought of DP moving stuff wihout me there freaks me out...call me a control freak but I can just see him and his mates dropping all my fragile stuff and packing heavy stuff ontop of light stuff etc if im not there...
Im still not very big, my bump doesn't get in the way at all , so I think if I pack the boxes, get DP and his friends to move the heavy stuff and put everything in its appropriate room (I will write 'babys room' etc on each box) I should be alright. Its just so annoying, I can just tell we will get a place a week before my due date and will be in limbo between two houses at the worst time!!!:wall:

I moved interstate (NSW to VIC) when i was 35 weeks pg with DD1.....not fun!

We then moved house again when i was 24 weeks pg with DD2....not fun either.

My choice would be to move BEFORE bub comes, that way you can settle in to a house and get set up, then you dont need to disrupt bub moving later on and get them all out of wack or routine.