Moving house with kids: a week-by-week checklist that includes them

Most of the timeline is set by three dates: the last day you can be in the old place, the first day you can get into the new one, and the first day at the new school. Pin those down first, even roughly, and write them where every adult can see them. Every other deadline in this guide counts back from one of them.

1. Settle the moving day, and whether there is a gap or an overlap between the two homes.
2. Get quotes from movers, or reserve a truck and line up help. Weekends and the end of the month go first.
3. Call the new school, or the district office, and ask how enrollment works and what they need from you.
4. Start a budget with an estimate for every line: movers or truck, boxes, deposits, travel, a few nights of takeout, and the things you will have to buy at the other end.
5. Start letting things go. Every box you do not pack is a box nobody has to carry, unpack, or find a place for.

Tell them early, and tell them specifically. A child who knows the date, has seen a picture of the new house, and knows which room is theirs has something to hold on to. A child who has overheard half a phone call has a rumor. Younger children need it shorter and closer to the time, and repeated. Teenagers need it sooner, with room to be unhappy about it, and with the decisions that genuinely can be theirs handed to them.

Then give them jobs that are real, not decorative. Kids can pack their own books and toys, decide which toys are going and which are being given away, draw where the furniture goes in their new room, and take photos of the old house and the people in it before the last week. A teenager can own a whole piece of the checklist, such as researching the new bus route or the nearest library, and report back.

Make a short goodbye list with each child: the friends, places and people they want to see before the move. Give it dates, so the goodbyes happen instead of being promised. Collect the addresses, phone numbers or usernames of the friends they want to keep, and agree with the other parents how the children will stay in touch.

Ask the current school how records reach the new one. Often the new school requests them once your child is enrolled, but the process varies, so ask both ends rather than assuming. Ask the new school what enrollment needs. Proof of address, immunization records, a birth certificate and the latest report card are common requests, and the list is set locally.

Keep your own copies regardless: the last report card, any test results, and any plan the school uses to support your child, such as an individual education plan or a 504 plan in the United States. Records sent between schools can arrive late. Copies in your hands mean the first weeks at the new school do not start from nothing.

If the move falls mid-year, ask the new school whether a visit before the first day is possible. Walking the route, finding the classroom, and meeting one adult by name take most of the dread out of the first morning.

Find a new pediatrician, family doctor and dentist before you need one, not on the evening a child has a fever. Ask the current practices how to transfer records, and keep copies of immunization records and anything about an ongoing condition.

Refill prescriptions before the move, so each one has enough to bridge the gap until a new doctor or pharmacy is set up, and ask the pharmacy how to transfer a prescription to one near the new home. Carry medications with you on moving day, never in the truck. The same goes for the pets: their records, their food, and the name of a vet at the other end.

The address change is where moves leak. Each organization has to be told separately, and the ones you forget are the ones that matter in three months: the insurance renewal, the tax document, the bank card that arrives at the old address.

Build one list, and tick it off as you go. Start with the postal service, so mail is forwarded while the rest catch up. Then, roughly in order of how much it hurts to miss them:

1. Employers and payroll, banks, credit cards, and anything that sends a tax document.
2. Insurance of every kind: health, car, home or renters, life.
3. Utilities at both ends: stop dates at the old home, start dates at the new one, booked now.
4. Government records: driver's licenses, vehicle registration and voter registration. The rules and deadlines depend on where you live, so check with each office.
5. Schools, doctors, dentists, the pharmacy and the vet.
6. Every subscription and delivery that comes to the house.
7. Family and friends, the people who send birthday cards.

The fastest way to build items 1, 2, 3 and 6 is from a recent bank or card statement, not from memory. Anything that charges you is something that has your address.

The first night in a new house is when the move feels worst, because everything you own is there and nothing can be found. Pack one box or bag per person that answers the first evening and the first morning, label it with their name, and travel with it rather than loading it on the truck.

1. Bedsheets, a pillow and a blanket for that person's bed.
2. Pajamas, a change of clothes, and toiletries.
3. Phone chargers.
4. For each child, the comfort object, a book, and one thing to do that needs no Wi-Fi.
5. For the household: toilet paper, soap, a towel each, a kettle or a pot, mugs, snacks, a box cutter, a flashlight, and a basic first-aid kit.

Let each child pack their own box, with you checking it. It is a small amount of control on a day that otherwise offers them none.

Label every box with the room it goes to, not only what is in it, and write it on two sides and the top, because boxes get stacked. A color per room makes it faster still: a strip of colored tape on the box and a matching piece on the door frame of the room at the other end, so whoever is carrying it does not have to ask.

Number the boxes and keep a list of the numbers, with a word or two on what each holds. Mark a handful as open first, one per room: the box that turns a room into somewhere usable. Children can label their own boxes, and drawing on them is fine.

Some things travel with you, in the car or a bag you carry, because losing them for a week is not an inconvenience but a crisis.

1. Passports, birth certificates, school and medical records, the lease or closing papers, and the moving contract.
2. Medications and prescriptions.
3. Keys, both old and new.
4. Laptops, chargers, and anything holding the only copy of your photos.
5. Jewelry, cash and anything irreplaceable.
6. The first-night boxes, and the pets' things.

Ask your movers for their list of items they will not carry. Many will not move household chemicals, fuel, open food or plants, and it is better to find that out a week before than on the doorstep.

On moving day, the kids need either a job or somewhere else to be. A younger child is often happier with a grandparent or friend for the loading and back in time to see the new house. An older child can be in charge of the first-night boxes, or of the pet. Before you leave, photograph the meter readings and walk through every room and cupboard one last time.

At the other end, make the beds before anything else, and set up the children's rooms first. A room that is theirs, even with boxes in it, is the fastest way for a new house to feel like home.

The first week is for routines more than unpacking. Keep one or two from the old house, such as dinner at the same time or the same bedtime story. Walk the route to school before the first day. Find the nearest pharmacy and urgent care, and meet at least one neighbor. Expect a dip in mood a week or two in, once the novelty is gone and the old friends are far away. That is normal, and it is the moment to put one of those goodbye-list friends on a video call.

Projects holds a move the way it holds a renovation. Start one project for the move, with moving day as its target date. The budget tab holds each line as an estimate and, once paid, an actual, and a line not yet paid counts at its estimate, so the committed total does not look smaller than it will be. You can set a cap for the whole project. The checklist holds every item from this guide with a due date, a person, and a milestone flag for the big dates. There is a tab for decisions, why you chose this mover or that school, and one for photos.

Checklist items due today show on the hub's Today view for everyone who can see the project. A project starts visible to adults only, which suits the budget. If you want the children to see it and take items, whoever started it can switch it to everyone, and a suggested automation then puts an item assigned to someone on their list in Tasks. That hand-off only happens for a project the whole household can see, so a child is never sent the title of something they could not open.

Tasks covers the jobs that sit outside the move, with due dates, priorities, labels, subtasks and recurring tasks, assigned to whoever is doing them. Calendar takes the fixed dates: moving day, the movers' arrival window, the utility appointments, the school visit and the first day. If you already keep a Google, Apple or Outlook calendar, its events show alongside.

Family Records keeps a card for each child with their doctor and dentist, their school, its phone number and their teacher, allergies, medications and clothing sizes. Update it the day the new school and the new doctor are settled, because it is the card a babysitter or a grandparent reaches for. Records under School and Medical hold the transcripts and immunization records, either as a file or as a note with a reference number, and anything with an expiry date floats to the top as it gets within 45 days. Family Records is for adults only.

Documents holds the paperwork everyone else needs to find: the lease or the closing documents, the moving contract and estimate, and the receipts. Put the sensitive ones in a folder set to adults only. PDFs and images preview without downloading.

Contacts is a shared address book with a name, phone, email, address and notes for each entry, and a category such as doctor, dentist or school. Add the new pediatrician, the school office, the movers and the landlord as you find them, so the whole household has them, not just the person who made the call. A .vcf file exported from a phone imports in one go.

Subscriptions & Bills lists everything the household pays for on repeat, with renewal dates and a monthly and yearly total. Everyone can read it and adults keep it. Before a move it doubles as a ready-made start to the change-of-address list, since everything on it bills you somewhere.

Home Inventory is worth an evening before the packing starts. Photograph the valuable things, with make, model, serial number and value, so there is a record if something arrives damaged. Each item also has a location in plain words, so while things are in transit the location can be the box number, and at the other end, the room it went to.

A move for a family of three with a short distance and a simple school change can run on a sheet of paper on the fridge and a calendar, and that is a perfectly good plan. What matters is that the list exists, everyone can see it, and every item on it has a date and a name.

The case for keeping it somewhere shared is the second adult, and the children who are old enough to take a job. A list only one person can see is a list only one person carries. When the checklist, the dates and the contacts are where everyone can find them, the move stops being one person's project that everyone else is helped through, and becomes something the household did together.

• Projects
• Tasks
• Calendar
• Contacts
• Subscriptions & Bills
• Family Records
• Documents
• Home Inventory

Every app in the library is included with the household plan. Install the ones this guide uses and skip the rest.

• How the private household hub works
• Setting the household up for a school year that does not unravel
• Knowing what the household owns, and letting the rest of it go
• A realistic weekly family planning routine that takes 20 minutes
• How to share the mental load at home, not just the chores