Which Parent Should Keep the House After Divorce? "Bird Nesting" Parents Say Both
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When Roma Norriss, a parenting consultant in the UK, was getting ready to lead a class on breastfeeding one morning, she discovered she didn’t have her teaching materials. She had come straight from the room she was renting, not realizing that she had left them in the house she shared with her ex-husband and kids. She realized that what was once a common occurrence for children of divorce — “I left my homework in the other house!” — had happened to her.
She turned it into a teachable moment, explaining to her class that she and her ex had just started “bird nesting,” a co-parenting arrangement where the kids stay in the family home, and the parents split their time between that house and a different one, depending on who has custody. She was able to make the class work without her materials, but her situation gave her and her students some insight into what many kids with divorced parents face.
“It’s been a sobering experience to find out what it’s like as an adult to do the back-and-forth that we routinely expect the kids to do in more traditional co-parenting plans,” she says. “But anything you can do to reduce stress at this time, like bird nesting, makes this inherently difficult situation more workable.”
The co-parenting term “bird nesting” is taken from the image in nature when the mama and papa birds go back and forth to care for their hatchlings in the nest. While still not a common alternative to the more traditional arrangement in which children move between their parents’ separate homes, it does appear to be on the rise. Official stats are difficult to find — questions about it don’t appear on any census surveys — but divorce lawyers have reported an increase in bird nesting in places including the United States, and a recent UK study revealed that 11% of divorced or separated parents there had tried it.
So, is bird nesting the best separation or divorce co-parenting arrangement? Like other solutions to complicated issues, it depends. While it may sound good on paper — no more AWOL retainers or missing math homework — in real life, it’s not always easy. There is just no one-size-fits-all answer for parenting with one’s ex and so nesting offers advantages and challenges for both children and parents.
Bird nesting could be easier on kids, since they don't have to maintain two homes.
Most people who enter into a bird nesting arrangement do it because they believe it’s best for the kids. Certainly, there are clear advantages for the children involved. Experts often call bird nesting a child-friendly approach, says Los Angeles’ Aurisha Smolarski, LMFT and author of the forthcoming Cooperative Co-Parenting for Secure Kids, since the arrangement can promote stability, routine and better communication with each parent while reducing overall stress. “The children can maintain everything they are familiar with,” she says. “They have only one bedroom, their walk or drive to school stays the same, they keep their neighborhood friends, and they don’t have the challenge of changing their physical environment every few days.”
Oona Metz, LICSW, a Boston, MA, psychotherapist who specializes in treating women navigating divorce, calls bird nesting a particularly supportive co-parenting strategy for families with infants or toddlers, being less disruptive to sleep schedules, or with children who have difficulty with transitions. Teenagers navigating their own busy social schedules might also benefit from remaining in one house and neighborhood.
Dr. Tom Murray is an LMFT in Greensboro, NC who's also a certified child custody evaluator and who had bird nested with his own young kids for a time. He agrees that the approach can provide children with a sense of stability during a challenging time, facilitating ongoing, consistent contact with both parents and allowing for a smoother transition and better communication between all family members. It also lets kids start to experience life with each parent separately, while other changes can happen at a pace that’s suited to the child’s age, developmental stage and temperament.
Cordelia Newlin of Mexico and her ex-husband have been nesting for almost two years and says it is working out well for them. “There is no, ‘One house is nicer than the other,’” she says. A few months in, she adds, “When I asked [my kids] how everything was going, one of them said, ‘My life has barely changed,’ so I took that as a good sign.”
The children of former partners Kathleen Meyer* and Judith Franklin* of Los Angeles, who bird nested for about five years, felt similarly. “They both acknowledge that their lives changed very little when we separated, which made it a million times easier for them,” Meyer says. “With bird nesting, the most challenging aspect is the separation itself and the emotions that go along with that — not the living arrangement.”
In her research Abbie Goldberg, Ph.D., a professor of clinical psychology at Clark University who focuses on LGBTQ+ and adoptive families, found that same-sex parents, like Meyer and Franklin, more often sought post-divorce/dissolution co-parenting arrangements — such as bird nesting or sharing a duplex — that were nontraditional in nature. ”This likely reflects in part their lesser likelihood of conforming to gender norms related to how post-divorce co-parenting is supposed to go,” she says.
Elena Loveland of Fairfax Station, VA, tried the arrangement temporarily when first separated from her husband and only stopped because of pandemic-related issues. Nesting worked so well for her family that she and her ex are now considering re-implementing it. “Frankly, it felt easier for us to move back and forth ourselves than the kids,” she says. “Everyone told us it wasn’t going to work long-term, but years later we still agree that it was the best situation. People who pooh-pooh the idea do not understand what 50/50 custody and divorce is actually like; it requires more communication between parents than most people think.”
So, is bird nesting without its challenges for one’s children? Of course not. No matter how carefully thought out or entered into with the best of intentions, there can be downsides for bird-nested kids, experts say. “This arrangement may keep a child from truly processing and accepting the reality that their parents are no longer together,” Smolarski says. In addtion, if one or both of their parents are unhappy with the arrangement or if their parents continue to have conflict with each other regarding the house, Metz says, the children may pick up on that tension.
Parents can find bird nesting more of a challenge.
A bird nesting arrangement can offer some real advantages for parents as well as their kids, Norriss says. “Parents have a lot of new things to navigate during a separation — new homes, a renegotiation of the family budget, potentially the necessity to start commanding an income or paying maintenance,” she says. “Knowing that the kids are settled can ease feelings of guilt but also the family home can be a familiar and comforting place for adults too.”
When she nested with her ex, Norriss rented a room in a nearby house. “It was the perfect balance,” she says. “Half the time I was with my kids and half the time I was living a lively, single, carefree life, which certainly buffered me through the bumpy months following the breakdown of our twelve-year relationship.”
But many co-parents see nesting only as a short-term solution. “It can be a first step in the larger process of separating their homes completely and can allow co-parents to feel out what custody arrangements might work best for their child and for them,” Smolarski says. “It can also provide more time to sell a jointly owned home if that is their longer-term plan, or to save money so they will have the funds to find two separate homes.”
And of course, this — or any — arrangement is easiest to accomplish if the parties divorcing have the resources to pursue it; it can be costly to share a mortgage and upkeep costs on the family house and one or two additional places to live. Sarah Bregel of Baltimore, MD bird nested with her two young kids for a time when she was separated. To keep costs down, she and her ex took turns going to a budget apartment — the basement of a nearby house — rented for that purpose.
While adding that there is no perfect co-parenting arrangement, Bregel describes nesting as having been an ideal transition for her from being the primary parent. “I knew that if I could handle being alone in a crappy apartment a few nights a week and actually feel happy in it, that moving forward I was going to be okay,” she says. “It helped confirm that I was making the right decision.” She also thinks it was an important part of the transition for her ex. “He was grieving the end of the marriage and going straight to getting his own place might've been harder for him.”
On the other hand, bird nesting can provide particular challenges for parents who are not divorcing amicably. “In a conflictual divorce,” Metz says, “it may feel emotionally difficult to share space with a soon-to-be-ex-spouse. Nesting requires a lot of cooperation and collaboration which people who are getting divorced often don’t have.”
Another challenge for parents that arises with nesting, Smolarski adds, “is that it keeps the co-parents in each other’s spaces, thus opening up the possibility of more conflict, tension and frustration about household issues, responsibilities and even dating.” When new partners enter the picture, parents may need to take a second look at or re-negotiating the arrangement. Questions regarding when new partners are allowed to spend time with the kids, to access the family home and to sleep over have to be addressed. “Even if things are quite amicable when you are newly separated and embarking on this arrangement,” says Norriss, “this can deteriorate when one of you gets a new partner.”
Are there any instances in which bird nesting should definitely not be pursued? Yes, says licensed therapist Erin Pash of St. Paul, MN, whose own children she says are thriving in a more traditional arrangement. While some people might think nesting is an ideal way to avoid changes or major disruption in a child’s routine, she says, it can sometimes cause more conflict in the parental relationship, which is tied to higher risk factors for children.
“The goal throughout divorce is to adequately support children through the changes and transitions by reducing conflict in the parent relationship,” she says. “So while nesting might seem like a win-win for the kids, if parents can’t do it right and it just increases more conflict, it can actually be more damaging for the children than having them adjust to transitions like moving out of the family home.” More important than a specific type of co-parenting arrangement, she says, is having parents who support their children and prioritize their mental health.
Susan McIntyre* of Illinois says nesting didn’t work in her case because her ex-husband, even though he arranged for it all, was just too angry. “He began doing some very messed up things in his attempt to force me out of the house,” she recalls. If her ex popped into the main house while she was there, he wouldn’t help the kids with anything. “He’d tell them to go ask me for help because it was ‘mommy's time.’"
The bottom line
Whatever co-parenting arrangement you consider, the most important thing is to prioritize your children and their experience. Metz advises parents not to promise their children anything other than “we will always be your parents and we will always love you.”
“While parents may have the best intentions and hope that nesting will work for the long term,” she says, “there are many things that change and evolve in a divorce and living arrangements may be one of them.”
Be honest with yourself, too, as to whether this is genuinely going to work with you, Norriss adds. “If the decision is coming from a place of guilt and not wanting to uproot the children,” she adds, “but deep down you know this arrangement will be too strenuous for you, there are other ways to support your children while co-parenting after divorce.”
Happy Bird Nesting Hacks
Thinking about bird nesting for your own family? Consider this advice from experts and experienced parents:
Take into account the needs of everyone in the family. If the arrangement is best for everyone, the parents should sit down and agree on the specifics before they begin. If possible, keep the focus on what's best for the children and their emotional needs while making sure the needs of the parents are met as well.
Put the arrangement in writing so everyone knows what to expect initially.
Discuss how costs and bills will be handled, and put this in writing as well.
Consider therapy for parents and/or kids to iron out details and make sure things are going smoothly.
Communicate regularly to discuss schedules, concerns, and any changes. Some families share a word document or calendar and/or have regular weekly phone calls to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
Create separate spaces for each parent in the main home, if possible, so they do not have to share the primary bedroom.
Pay attention to what items you are most often carrying back and forth between houses and duplicate if possible.
If the arrangement is good for the children but does not work for one or both of the adults, pursue another plan. Kid will pick up on the conflict and tension.
*Name and identifying details changed for privacy
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