Moving in 3 weeks!!! Eek! Advice?

[playfelt]

If the parents are on board let them know that tv and videos will be your best friends for a couple weeks and most will be ok with that. Start packing now anything they are not playing with so some disappears each day. Do it in front of them as they play and use the time to talk about the move and about you are moving to a new place with a bigger play room and build it up to them. If the house has already sold no reason to not start packing everywhere leaving out just what is needed. It also means you can unpack that way.

On a military move they come in and do the packing which is worse cause you don't get a chance to do what is important to you but you do have what they call first night boxes. You can do it one of two ways - pack up everything except for the basics for everyone or pack the basics for everyone and make do with the other stuff for now. The idea is when you first move you put the boxes in but only unpack the marked essential ones to get set up. That is bedding, towels, dishes, a few toys based on ages.

For the daycare make sure you are packing the toys separate from anything else in the house including your own daycare things like posters, etc. Pack just the toys and put some of each age group in a box. Then to unpack, each day open a box of toys in front of the kids and they get to play with whatever is in there. Then those things are put away on the shelves, bins, etc. or dumped back in the box and set to the side of the room. Over the week or so you gradually unpack the room and the kids get to rediscover stuff they forgot was there. It also means your evenings are spent unpacking your own families stuff.

[cfred]

I went through this in summer 2012. I didn't take any time off either. It was hard, but totally manageable. I'm single too, so did most of the work on my own. If I can do it, anyone can. However, I did carry both places for 1 extra month so I could move all the boxes myself after work every day. Someone said to pack up absolutely everything you can that you won't be using right away. Excellent advice!!! And label your boxes well! I labelled mine in detail and also with colour coding for quick identification. Leave boxes for your daycare and kitchen at the forefront. Like you plan to, I set up my daycare first. Also, get your kitchen at least somewhat functional. You'll want a few dishes, little cutlery, microwave, dishcloths, towels, facecloths and some easy foods to throw together. I ordered pizza for my family and just got an extra which fed the daycare kids lunch for a couple days (parents will understand under the circumstances), some crackers, cereal bars, raisins, fruit.

Good luck! It's going to be stressful, but those were the 2 things I found to be the biggest help. How exciting to be getting your new place!!! Have fun setting up your new daycare!