'Bird Nesting' Is the Surprisingly Practical Way Divorced Parents Are Co-Parenting

Co-parenting is no picnic. I should know; I have been doing it for going on five years now. I also know that the learning curve is pretty steep and the stress of figuring out a separation or divorce is enormous. Naturally, it’s a very emotionally charged event when you and the person you share children with decide to part ways…and then, you have to put all those prickly feelings aside and come up with a practical game plan. Who stays and who goes? Where do Jimmy and Jane sleep and when? Oh, and how will they adjust emotionally to all this upheaval?!

Bird nesting is a somewhat surprising and potentially practical approach to co-parenting, and if you’re navigating a separation, you might want to learn more about its pros and cons. Without further ado, here’s the full scoop from an expert on bird nesting, plus some anecdotes from people who have seen it in action, so you can determine whether a bird nesting arrangement is right for your family..

Dr. Danielle Forshee is a licensed psychologist and licensed clinical social worker specializing in both forensic and clinical practice, with a primary focus on matters arising in Family Court. Her areas of expertise include high-conflict divorce and custody disputes, parent-child contact problems, and the psychological complexities that often accompany these cases. 

Bird nesting is a unique co-parenting arrangement in which the kids stay in the family home and the separated parents split their time between that home and another one, depending on who has custody. Dr. Forshee tells me that this could play out in a number of different ways. She’s had cases where parents are not in a position financially to have a second residence, so they stay at a friend's house or family member's house every so often while the other parent is having their parenting time in the home, and then they swap; she has also had cases where parents do have the ability to “share” a separate residence, or even have two separate residences (i.e., one each) apart from the family home.

However it plays out, bird nesting arrangements tend to be either pretty easy to manage, or, well, very fraught. Dr. Forshee explains:

“In some cases, bird nesting can be really helpful and constructive and low conflict. In other cases, it isn’t because it really depends on the parent's ability to manage their own emotions and to have healthy boundaries in that interim parenting plan. And what I mean by an interim parenting plan setup is that, while people may agree to a nesting scenario, the parents also need to have good enough communication and parameters and structure to establish what this is going to look like and what it isn't going to look like.”

With that in mind, read on for some of the pros and cons of bird nesting, plus some experiences from real parents who have tried it.

One of the major advantages of bird nesting is that, ideally, it creates less disruption for the child. In fact, Dr. Forshee describes it as a child-centered approach, at least in theory. One major motivation for bird nesting is to minimize disruption to the child’s life. In these situations the child doesn’t have to be shuttled back and forth between two places, or potentially change schools, or have two sets of all their favorite toys, etc. 

According to Dr. Forshee, some parents do this strictly for child-centered reasons, usually because “they've been together for a long time and they realize that, you know, their chemistry or their fundamental differences are just irreconcilable but they truly can just navigate this without letting their emotions run the show.” 

Other times, parents choose a bird nesting situation for financial or legal reasons because it buys some time while you’re ironing out the details of your separation. Whatever the case may be, it can work wonderfully if the parents make the most of it as a practical, short-term arrangement. And there’s anecdotal evidence of this on a Reddit thread devoted to the subject, like this comment, which reads:

“My sister did this when she and her then-husband divorced. It worked out quite well in the short term until she and her ex husband found new homes and resolved their divorce. Their children were older (8-13ish) at the time and seemed to adjust quickly once they started living in both parents' new homes. They had time to prepare and plan. I think it’s better for the children for sure.”

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Forshee has encountered far fewer cases in which co-parents harmonize and communicate so well that they can actually pull this off for an extended period of time. In fact, nesting is particularly problematic if the parents are in a high conflict case. “For these parents, it’s usually not very helpful or effective because it's the conflict that creates destabilization for the child. It's not the separation itself. And so in cases where people are nesting and the conflict is unmanageable between them and the kid is exposed to their conflict, then it's a no-win scenario. What they’re trying to do is just not helping the child, and that's the whole purpose of a nesting scenario.”

But why so much conflict when you’re still managing to stay apart, either by crashing on a friend’s couch or staying at a shared apartment when the other parent is on duty, you ask? For starters, couch surfing half the week isn’t a lifestyle most parents want to maintain. Plus, even bigger problems might come from the fact that, although you might never be in the same home with your ex, you’re still sharing a lot more than just the kids. For example, how do you and the other parent feel about the possibility that one or both of you might have sex with new partners in the bed you take turns sleeping in when you’re with your child? And how will you handle minor annoyances—like, say, your ex leaving dirty dishes in the sink of the shared apartment before heading to the family home for the week? Indeed, issues around privacy and boundaries may very well come into play.

So what else does Reddit have to say? Well, comments like the one below suggest that bird nesting isn’t the co-parenting dream, but rather an arrangement that you can probably deal with…but only for so long:

“We did it for the first month after our divorce until my ex moved into her new place. It worked for that limited time, but would have been tough in the long term.”

And yet another one indicated that bird nesting can become pretty weird and sort of sad when it goes on for too long:

“I once read about a parent's experience. It was ok at first, but then slowly the childrens' home started to become less and less home-like. I think they gave up on it after 4-5 years and felt like they continued too long. Both parents had their own smaller apartment that they felt were their own home. The home the children lived in stopped feeling like home for the parents and without even noticing how or why they just didn't put that much "love" into that dwelling. So slowly it became less and less home-like and more impersonal.”

As for the real takeaway on bird nesting, Dr. Forshee has some sound advice that bears repeating.  First and foremost, she urges parents to “truly sit down and have a conversation with each other about that interim parenting plan, which means putting on paper what they agree to while they are doing this bird nesting situation, because it's ultimately a very temporary thing.” Indeed, the expert emphasizes that it’s essential to create structure and set clear expectations within the bird nesting arrangement if you want to set yourself up for success. Finally, “parents should decide to pull the plug on a nesting scenario if they’re unable to agree, struggling to shield the child from their problems or continuously exposing the child to their conflict.” In other words, if it’s not working a whole lot better than your marriage, it’s time to fly the nest.