When Colette Louis was pregnant with her second child, she knew she wanted a nesting party.
Similar to baby showers, nesting parties bring friends together to celebrate an expectant parent with community and food. Missing, however, are the gifts (and the accompanying awkward gift-opening) and groan-inducing games. Instead, guests chip in with various tasks around the house. The parties often take place during the third trimester when parents start to feel especially overwhelmed.
Ms. Louis, a 39-year-old content creator in Charlotte, N.C., gathered friends for the party in March 2023 — when she was seven months pregnant — and assigned them various chores. One friend cleaned breast pump parts while another washed and folded clothes. In exchange, Ms. Louis prepared a brunch spread.
“At that point, I had everything that I needed,” for her son, who was born that May, Ms. Louis said. Having her friends help her and her husband get everything ready took “a weight off.”
Was it hard for Ms. Louis to put her friends to work? “Not at all,” she said. When she had her daughter six years earlier, she didn’t ask for help. “I thought, as a mom, you’re supposed to be able to take care of your baby by yourself,” she said. “I quickly learned that actually, no, you need a village.”
Nesting parties hark back to the community-driven events of yore like barn raising — historically Amish community gatherings that combined building a neighbor’s barn and socializing — and have cozy, hygge vibes. They are popular on social media — on TikTok, videos of nesting parties can get millions of views.
Searches for “nesting parties” on the social media platform Pinterest have increased 205 percent between September 2022 and August 2024, according to the company. Sydney Stanback, global trends and insight lead at Pinterest, said Gen Z-ers and millennials are driving the trend in “direct response to the baby shower becoming a bit of a social media moment over the past few years.” In other words, as pressure builds to make baby showers bigger and flashier, people are also seeking out nesting parties, which are more low-key.
The growing interest in nesting parties also goes hand-in-hand with a rise of “underconsumption core,” a trend that romanticizes buying and using only what you need. Dr. Jill Zechowy, a physician and perinatal psychotherapist in Santa Rosa, Calif., sees both as a response to the isolation people experienced during the pandemic and a desire to forge connections with others instead of accumulating material things.
Usually, the society places more emphasis pregnancy, with little attention paid to what happens after birth, said Dr. Zechowy, who is the author of “Motherhood Survival Manual.”
“Having a baby can be lonely,” she added. “It’s like a total upheaval of your life.” She encouraged new parents to maintain friendships. “Nesting parties are a great way of getting everyone connected and building that support.”
When it comes to organizing a nesting party, Dr. Zechowy advised parents to focus on activities like assembling furniture, preparing freezer meals and creating baby-feeding stations in different rooms. “I wouldn’t ask somebody to do anything that you wouldn’t do at their home, and I think it really shouldn’t be about drudgery,” Dr. Zechowy said. “It should be things that people will feel good about doing and not taken advantage of.”
Greta Seidohl, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Grand Rapids, Mich., said she preferred nesting parties because they reject the idea of consumption. Ms. Seidohl, 31, and her husband were expecting their second child this spring, five years after they had their daughter. While she did need a few new items for the baby, she preferred a nesting party because it was “really grounded in community and support in a way our world needs more of,” she said.
At Ms. Seidohl’s home, one friend organized a Tupperware drawer, while another went through the medicine cabinet and made sure the baby medications were up to date. There was also a station where guests filled Easter eggs with sweet notes for Ms. Seidohl’s older child, so she could open an egg each morning after the baby’s arrival. “It let her feel included and seen,” Ms. Seidohl said.
Another way nesting parties stand apart from baby showers is their focus on inclusivity. Traditionally, baby showers center on the expectant mother and her friends and family and mostly exclude the father. Nesting parties present a way for both parents to get involved. “We do these things and they’re all women-centered, and then partners don’t feel a part of it,” Dr. Zechowy said. She said people then expect partners “to suddenly jump in and be hands-on, and they have no idea where anything is or what they’re supposed to do.”
In April, Travis Little surprised his wife Kailey Little with a nesting party when Ms. Little, 27, was pregnant with her first child. A small group of their closest friends attended at their home in Los Angeles, making Ms. Little’s transition to motherhood feel less daunting. “We got to see our guy friends who know nothing fully jump in and try to learn how to install a car seat,” said Ms. Little, a professional dancer. “None of our friends knew what they were doing. But we were all figuring it out together.”
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