Moving with kids?

[DannyCoyles]

Hi

Just wanted to know how anyone with kids found moving them to Australia and within Australia. We moved here 2 ½ years ago and after a few weeks our 1 year old son started crèche we rented my brother’s house off him and thought we were settled into an area for a year at least or until our house got built. After 7 months we found out that our land and would be at least another 6 months before we could start building, so my brother decided he wanted his house back (they had moved into his in-laws to save money but it wasn’t working out). Our son had just got settled again and was sleeping well at last, but off to another rental. We stayed in the same area because of his crèche and 16 months later our house was ready to move into. But he never settled in that house at all and I was so annoyed at my brother for not keeping the original agreement for us to rent his place until our house was ready, no matter how long it took.

 

So we have been in our new house for 6 months and he is starting to settle, it’s in a different area about 20 mins from where we were before but we kept him in the same crèche as not to disrupt him further plus we were expecting our second (born 29th December) so knew he would be having a break from crèche anyway. So after 6 months of long trips to and from work he had his last day at crèche on Friday. It was one of the hardest things we had to do picking him up on his last day, nearly as bad a leaving Ireland. He had been with those people 5 days a week for 2 ½ years and treated them like family, they made him a good bye card with hand prints of all his friends and took lots of photos of him playing with them. Staff had tears in their eyes and so did we.

 

I really regret not taking longer to pick the area we wanted to live before starting him in crèche, we didn’t have much choice as we were kind of forced to rent my brother’s house but I should have been firmer and just said no. I know kids adapt to situations well but after moving them the other side of the world to much moving around does upset the routine and affect their behaviour we have found. So just a bit of advice to anyone moving with kids, try and get them settled and think of the consequences of your decisions long term. They are the reason a lot of us moved or what to move here in the first place.

 

Danny.

[Guest famousfive]

Yes.we all think kids are so resillient,especially when very little,but sometimes this is not the case.We moved here before when the kids were very little.I don't think the 8mth old even noticed,she slept through from the very first night and was settled in every way.The 2 1/2yr old was another kettle of fish alltogether.She would not eat from the day we landed,nothing,not even a bite for the first two days.Then we got her to eat a mini pot of yogurt[petit miam].She ate one of these every day for a month,just one.We had her at the doctors etc,nothing worked.Eventually she started losing a lot of weight,it got very scary.We had every type of food imaginable left around the house to tempt her,no good.Then one day my mom phoned from Ireland and told her she had baked her a very special cake and was sending it to her,Nana would be very sad if she did not eat it etc..Off I went to buy a cake and wrapped it up in gift wrap,said it was Nanas cake.She ate it and gradually began eating again.We returned home one year later and she reacted the same again for about two weeks.She is now 11yrs of age and has not eaten normally ever since.Moving can,and does,affect some children very badly.