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The Best Family Halloween Costumes

Halloween is coming! It might not be your thing, but if you’re excited to dress up in a family costume—whether you’re pregnant or have a new baby—read on for ideas. 

Are you a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fan? In the book by Roald Dahl, spoiled visitor to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory Violet Beauregarde chews some gum that leads to her swelling up and turning blue. If you’re quite pregnant, just paint your face blue and you have the perfect pregnancy costume. Your partner can be Willy Wonka and any older kids can be Oompa Loompas.

In a classic pun and costume combo, you might want to dress up as a jar of Prego pasta sauce. Your partner can be a chef or a pot of spaghetti and if there are older kids in your family, they can be garlic bread, a pepper grinder, or a fork.

If Pokemon Go is your thing, your baby bump would also look great decorated as a pokeball, and your partner could be another pokemon or a Pokemon Go player or even a cell phone with the Pokemon Go map open.

The 2007 film Juno presents a great opportunity to dress up with clothes you likely already have at home. Pregnant teen Juno wears ratty jeans, a large jacket, and a t-shirt or hoodie. Paulie, her boyfriend and the baby’s dad, is often running in short shirts, a hoodie, and a headband.

Another film-related option, the Tom Hanks drama Castaway might also make a great family costume. Dress your bump up as Wilson, the painted volleyball that’s Hanks’ sole companion for the majority of the movie, and your partner can be Hanks with a long beard, hair, and ratty clothes.

If you have an older child at home, dressing your belly or your newborn up as Olaf from the Frozen movies is likely to be a hit. And then your older children and spouse have several other great characters to choose from. The  extra bonus for this family costume is that there are a lot of commercially available Frozen-related costumes out there.

If you’re still pregnant, consider dressing your baby bump as a pot of gold, and your spouse as a leprechaun. If baby has already arrived, dress them all in gold and yourself as a leprechaun, too. And your leprechaun costume doesn’t have to be fancy, mostly green clothes will suffice.

A pregnant belly looks great as a disco ball and your partner can go out dressed as John Travolta in disco flick Saturday Night Fever. If baby has already arrived, make them the disco ball, and you can be Karen Lynn Gorney’s character Stephanie from Saturday Night Fever. If you really want to commit to the costume, learn some dance moves together.

For Star Wars fans, the pregnant belly makes a great BB8. Your spouse and older children can pick any characters they want: Jedis are easy with a bathrobe and toddlers make perfect Ewoks. If your newborn is already here, consider characters from Disney’s series The Mandalorian. The infant can be Baby Yoda, and there are several human and human-ish people for the adults in the family to dress up as.

My personal favorite family costume is Jennifer Gray’s Baby and Patrick Swayze’s Johnny from Dirty Dancing. If you’re still pregnant, dress your belly up as the watermelon that she carries. If your baby’s already here, dress them up as the watermelon. This would be another great time to practice some easy dance moves.

Winnie the Pooh with the big belly is a great costume for pregnant folks, and there are plenty of other characters—Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet—for the other members of your family. If your baby has already been born, you could dress them up as any of the characters and build the family costume around them. Maybe you’ll be Kanga, they’ll be Roo, and your coparent will be Winnie the Pooh. Or baby could be Piglet and you could be Winnie and your coparent could be Eeyore. It’s up to you!

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is one of my kids’ favorite books, and it also makes a great family costume. Dress baby up as Max, the king of wild things, and you, the parents, can be monsters.

Abby Olena
Dr. Abby Olena has a PhD in Biological Sciences from Vanderbilt University. She lives with her husband and children in North Carolina, where she writes about science and parenting, produces a conversational podcast, and teaches prenatal yoga.

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