How to handle this?

[SiarasMummy]

Hello,
My Daughter is 3 and we recently moved in to our own home. Previously we were renting and had been from when she was born. When we started building our home we made frequent visits here and made sure our daughter knew that a change was coming and we would be moving in to our new house.
For the first few weeks she seemed excited and fine about the move but for the past month, almost on a daily basis she tells us she 'wants to go back to the old house' and 'I don't like this house I want to go home'. We have been here for 3 months now and she is still saying it. She has been a unsettled at night but I'm not sure if it is part of the issue or not as she has never been a great sleeper.
I gently tell her that we have moved in to a bigger, nicer house so she can have more space and explain there is now someone else living in our old pace, but sometimes she gets quite upset about it.
I am also 6 months pregnant so there is even more change on the horizon for her and I am worried it is going to cause problems. Any ideas?

[HotI]

Have you been past your old house? Maybe she just wants to check it is still there. Is there something in the old house she liked that you could make a similar one in the new place?

[charliebear]

Hi,

I just wanted to say that I am going through a similar experience. my son is 3 years and 8 months (that old! It flies by) and we moved interstate last November. He was pretty fine all summer, we spent the first month staying with family and he played with the kids a lot etc so he was pretty happy and/or distracted. Then I went back to uni and of course he got very bad homesickness. He is slowly improving, but he still sometimes talks about "when we go back to the old house". I"ve found it useful to ask him specifics about what he misses, he says it's the backyard (not surprising, it was kind of fab!). I guess I'm just trying to reassure you that this sounds perfectly normal. moving house is stressful for adults, even more so for little kids. Hang in there! And good luck for the baby

[sneakysparkle]

Its hard isn't it, we moved last year (so DD#1 was 3.5) and she STILL mentions the old house.
I find that just letting her talk about it, and looking at pictures of the old place, and remembering good things about the old place helped - because then I could ask her about some of the fun times she has since had in the NEW place, and that we are making lots of happy memories here.
I also talked about how it was good that we left the old place, because now someone else has somewhere to live.
Just keep reassuring her, and let her talk about it.
WRT the new bub - keep talking about that too - kids are resilient and can cope better than we think most of the time

All the best!

[black_rose]

Dd1 was like that we moved in December and she has only just started calling this house home. She misses the old one but we are close enough to drive past so she can see it. We made a big deal of her having a beautiful new room that is her space, and the kids have a play room so we talk about how nice it is. Hopefully your dd will settle on soon.

[SiarasMummy]

Thanks for the replies. I have thought about taking her past the old place but the thing is, it was a unit at the very end of a long, private driveway, I don't want to new people in there thinking we are snooping LOL I remember how suspicious I used to be of anyone that came walking down our driveway. As for things she liked in the old house, I ask her about that all the time but she doesn't say anything other than 'I want to go to the old house' or ''I don't like the new house'. Our old place was pretty cramped and our new house has loads more space and she also has a toy room here but for some reason she still says she doesn't like it. You just can't win can you?!
At first it wasn't something I was concerned about but especially with a baby only a few months away I am worried what all this change will be like for her...