Having lived in greater London for 30 years, I moved back to Kerry in Ireland a few years ago.

This was a HUGE move - I was leaving the country where I'd lived almost all of my adult life, where I'd made amazing friends, had great colleagues (who became friends) worked... I'd run two small businesses (small Children's publishers) out of my house, so there were also lots of work archives to sort and pack. You can read about the move on my blog and here are my tips based on what I learned along the way (and have found themselves into my new book!)

Moving can be a challenge for children too - exciting, scary and even traumatic.
One way to help is to involve children in the process so they feel agency versus feeling that the move is something happening to them.
This will require patience on your part!! You may feel you would do everything so much more quickly if you just did it yourself - but then that's the case for pretty much everything you do with small children!

As someone who’s worked most of my life as an editor, you can imagine, my practical preparations were focussed on process! I’m a planner and a checklist person – it helps me stay calm!
So, here’s what I did and what I learned along the way…

Before you start packing everything away...

...it might be nice to take some photos.
We take lots of photos of people, but if you’ve been in a place for a while and have happy memories there, it might be nice to consciously take some of your child’s bedroom / bed / sitting at the kitchen table… so you have a memory of the place and not just the occasions.

You can buy boxes, of course, and wrapping etc, but if you start early enough, you can ask local shops to put boxes by for you. You'll probably still need to buy some but if you can gather some too, this saves money and resources (after I moved, I managed to loan my boxes to one friend who moved locally and to finally give them away to another person who was leaving the area).
It also gives you a much better range of sizes (see note below about books!).

We were moving to another country, and our belongings would be consolidated with some other people's for shipping, so I guess that made me nervous and extra careful.

One of my best ideas was to have sheets of small labels printed with our new address on. This didn’t cost much and it meant we just had to stick them on every box versus writing the address on every one – in fact I could stick them on numerous faces or the boxes so they could be seen from any angle.
This is also something kids really enjoy doing – almost as much as using stickers…

As an editor I'm excellent at sorting and categorising words, headings, material... but stuff - nahhh!!!!
Giving, or worse, throwing away stuff is difficult for me. I don't like to think of myself as a hoarder, but I do keep things... like forever!

Since we were moving to another country, I felt I should be ruthless - why pay a lot to ship boxes of very old crap when I could (should) sort them and give/gift/throw them away.

To make things more complicated, I had run two businesses from my house – so I had boxes of archive copies of books and contracts and notes  - as well as all the usual clutter you accumulate in a lifetime (particularly if you’re someone who struggles to throw anything away!).

After 30 years, it was quite hard and I realised I was getting logjammed stopping to give consideration to lots of items – spending ages making ‘keep or give away?’ decisions about so many things: clothes I would never wear again but had happy associations; things people had given me; items with no practical value but that I’d kept for nostalgia reasons… That’s when I came up with having a - ta dah -

                        Nostalgia box
 
I decided that anything I was struggling to make a decision about, I would put in there.
Then, when it was full, I would review it. I would find that I had three things that reminded me of one occasion of my life, or gifted by one person… and it was easier to choose the most special one and give the rest away (you can also take a photo of what you're giving away).
 
You will not believe how much of your brain and emotional energy this will save.
(All of this IS really emotional  - I'm going to write a separate piece about that, so check back for a link.)

TIPP So, allocating a different colour to different rooms means that you, your family and the removal people can ALL see at a glance the destination of each box – easy peasy lemon squeasy!
Children can chose the colours and will LOVE getting involved in the stickering.

TIP It’s important to think about destination versus where you are now.
So, for example, if you have two children currently sharing but will have separate rooms in the new place, let them each choose a different colour, then it’s easy to sort when you get there.
 
You can, if you really want to go all out, put a large sheet of paper with that colour on the door of each room in your new place – then direct everyone to put boxes with that colour sticker in those rooms.

You will of course need to have lists of what’s inside each box - that's for you.

We were putting our stuff in storage for 6 months while we renovated a house, so I guess that focused my mind on this... I wouldn't be unpacking things right away, If I needed anything in between times, I would need to drive to the storage unit and find it. So I really didn't want to have to open seven boxes before hitting on the right one.

TIPP The easiest thing to do is to have a little clipboard and pad in each room (or for each person) and follow that sequentially (i.e. don’t try to have one numbering system throughout or you’ll have to constantly consult with everyone about what number they are at).

When you start a new box, put a number on it and on the pad, then list what’s inside.
You will start by being thorough, but by the time you’ve done 30 boxes you’ll be listing things like ‘big kitchen stuff’ - and you may or may not remember what you meant by this!!
 
When I was sorting, I found a few archive boxes in the attic that my colleague, Vikram, had helpfully labelled Work! Not helpful!

In those days we would make physical dummy books of the early stages of projects for bookfairs and sales conferences. Nowadays people can create PDFs and show them or print them out, but we had to Xerox the art, print the text on transparent paper and stick it into position, then fold it and stick that into a blank printer’s dummy. It was repetitive and tiring work, often late at night before the fairs. We played energetic music to get us through – mostly drum & base and garage - and Vikram burnt our favourites onto a few CDs. I found these in the Work archive labelled ‘dummy music’) .
 
If your child can operate a smartphone or tablet, they can take a photo of what’s in their boxes. You’ll still need to number each box and photo, but you’ll have minimal listing.
This may seem time consuming at first, but it will save your children asking you, “where’s my x”– you can direct them to look through their photos and locate it themselves.

This is not just easier for you, but it will help them feel in control versus that the move is happening to them.

Reserve a box and number one (maybe even one and two) for what you need immediately on arrival. You’ll urgently need a tea or a coffee, and snacks, and it will be VERY frustrating if all the spoons are in a box right at the bottom of a stack of heavy boxes!

TIP Also note, you’ll need scissors or a knife to open boxes – if you don’t put those in the (untaped just folded closed) number 1 accessible box, you’ll be tearing off tape with your teeth while exhausted and gagging for coffee.

Do put some treats in there – everything runs late when your moving, best laid plans go awry, so in case you find that the local takeaway closes at 8 and it’s 8.15, you’ll need chocolate!

TIP A number one box – or better still a little wheelie case – is also a good idea for little ones.
They can pack a favourite bed-time story, their best toy, favourite PJs – familiar things that will help them settle in new surroundings. It’s sometimes tempting to buy new things for a new place, but I’d suggest using the usual bedding for the first while.

If you will complete your move in a day, then just take the bedding off the bed in the morning and put it back on in the new place. If you’ll be in transit for a bit, try to have a pillow or favourite blankie along for the journey.

Confession here – I thought I was doing REALLY well when I’d packed my first 47 boxes until my partner pointed out I’d only packed books! And of course, I’d grouped them in categories and decided which I could give away and that all took ages... leaving me under pressure for packing regular stuff like… everything else!

So TIP 1 maybe don’t start with books and instead, get into the swing of packing first!
 
TIP 2 – DON’T put all your books in boxes by themselves, you’ll not be able to lift them! Source some smaller boxes, or combine with light stuff like duvets or woolly jumpers!
 
TIP 3 - Labels – a special note for Children’s book people…
So, if you work in the beautiful place that is the children’s book world, you may just be in the habit of referring to what other people call fiction, as ‘adult books’.

This is rarely an issue unless you come downstairs on the morning of your move and find two burly removal guys staring at your 47 boxes of “adult books” and looking at you quizicaly!! It can make the rest of the day a little embarrassing!
 
I said this to an ‘adult editor’ friend, and he suggested it was probably all just fine once the movers saw my boxes of "Children’s Books” upstairs… reader, my boxes of children’s books were labelled Pigs, Babies, Fairies and Small Fairies.

ALL of this experience is folded into my most recent book. I hope you find it a useful story to prepare your child for a move (big or small). I hope that it gives some useful insights into the process and that some of the ideas will help give your child a feeling of preparedness and agency for the practical things. I hope that it provides enough spaces to stop and discuss anything your child might be concerned about. I prefer the idea of making space - that way a child can raise things they are concerned about rather than the story raising any additional fears they'd not even thought of.

It's hard to write this and not constantly think about the crises in Sudan and Gaza as we watch helpless as children are killed, shot, maimed and displaced. It's hard not to feel that this little story and my advice is trite or priveliged. But ALL children deserve to have their fears however small, taken seriously, so I hope you receive it in the spirit in which it is written.

I'm hoping to transfer the tips to a downloadable sheet - as soon as I work out how to do that.

Meantime, you can just buy a copy of the book (taking care, please to buy the right one for your part of the world) click on the cover for more information, and read my blog.