Anyone who has ever tried to do anything productive with a toddler will recognize that making actual progress is tough. It takes ingenuity. My toddler’s favorite activity is doing whatever I am doing—albeit in his own misguided way. If I’m folding clothes, he’s standing on the pile. If I’m taking out the garbage, he’s trying to get into the bag. If I’m cooking at the stove, he’s trying to pull his stool up underneath my arms to “help out”. You get the picture.

Donatello “helping out”

Getting ready for this move with a toddler who was home 24/7 was not entirely realistic. Thankfully, my husband was on holiday from work and was able to take the boy out pretty regularly. So, the first way to make moving with a toddler easier is to:

Share your toddler with someone else for the afternoon.

Hey, I never purported to be awesome with children. The fact is, any time you do any activity with a toddler, it is going to be extra work. Therefore, it’s helpful to have someone else doing distracting the tot. If that’s not an option, try this one:

Modify your activity to include your toddler.

Before moving, I noticed that the floors were getting filthy every day. Winter rain is rough on the hard wood and moving stuff about is no better. We started a nightly routine where the boy and the hubs picked up the floor, then I vacuumed up the gunk. Finally, Drake was given a squirt bottle with my homemade cleaning miracle in it to spray about. I followed along with towels underfoot, scrubbing the resulting puddles. More about my miracle spray in the next post…

Another task that is necessary when moving out of a house is scrubbing marks off the walls. Drake of course wanted to help with this. I didn’t want his hands actually touching any kind of cleaning product, eco friendly or otherwise; and they don’t make cleaning gloves readily available in a 3T. Despite this, he wanted to help; so I would give him a cloth dampened with water and let him go to town. It’s better than painting it with markers 😃

My last tip for moving with a toddler is one that is universally achievable, but not any easier on you:

Wait until they sleep.

I know, I know, you are tired too! Sleep deprivation is nobody’s friend. This is why you should keep your nocturnal packings to just an hour or two after they sleep, then get some rest yourself (if you can). When you start packing a couple of months in advance, this is more achievable. As someone who procrastinated a bit on my organizing, I’m not the best at this advanced preparation bit; which is why I’ve been so tired lately.

Now that the move is over and we are officially in Sweden; I actually got a full nights sleep last night. As such, my next post will finish out this moving series and then I can get to the fun stuff—settling into Sweden.

Until next time 🙂