Parents are waiting up to 8 months to get the Nugget, a foam couch that's the hottest toy of the year

• Nuggets are four-piece foam couches meant to be used creatively by kids.
• Despite the company opening a new factory, there's still an eight-month wait for backordered Nuggets.
• One mom said that the couch helps her kids get exercise and get creative.

This year, one of the hottest holiday gifts is a couch. Although it might seem unusual, parents say that the Nugget couch is great for keeping active kids entertained and engaged — and offering parents a much-needed slice of silence during the pandemic.

"My kids love it because they can slide, jump, wrestle, lounge, and build forts all with the same thing," said Murphy Bierbach, a mom in Wisconsin. She bought her children, ages one and three, a Nugget last year, and now is the admin of a Facebook Buy Sell Trade group for the couches.

Here's what you should know about the most talked-about products of the year, and why you might need a holiday miracle to get your hands on one.

What is a Nugget?

A nugget is a foam couch that retails for $229 to $259, depending on color. It comes in four pieces — two triangle pillows, one seat cushion, and one base — which kids can use to create a customized lounging space or fort. Nugget started as a Kickstarter campaign back in 2015, but has become hugely popular in the past year.

The flexibility and creativity of the product is what first drove Bierbach to look into purchasing one.

"I am a huge believer in giving kids appropriate things to expel their energy and natural tendencies to climb on so the nugget seemed perfect," she said.

Some parents of special needs children say that the couch is perfect for kids that are sensory-seeking, especially if those children are going to be stuck inside during the long winter months.

How to get a Nugget

Once the Nugget became the go-to foam couch for moms, the company had a hard time keeping up with demand. The company recently opened a new factory in North Carolina, but it is still working on producing enough Nuggets to meet demand. In fact, the company was blunt about this during an October update.

"While we've been building up our Nugget supply by increasing production capacity, demand for Nuggets has skyrocketed just as much," the company said in an October update. "Which brings us back down to Earth, and a less-than-ideal reality: not everyone who wants a Nugget before Christmas will be able to get one."

If you order a Nugget today, it will ship by June 30, 2021, according to the company website.

If you're feeling lucky, you can play a weekly lottery to get a Nugget within three weeks. The lottery is open every Wednesday from noon till 5 p.m. EST.

"As we approach what's sure to be a stressful season in an already-high-stress year, we want to make the process of getting a Nugget as smooth as possible! #NugLotto2020 is the most fair (and fun!) solution to the supply/demand problem that we see around the holidays — especially this year," the company wrote on its site.

Winners are notified on Fridays, and receive a special code to order their Nugget. After you've entered once, your information is kept in the system, so there's no need to reenter the lottery every week.

As has happened with many other hot items, especially in the parent space, a community has sprung up around the Nugget. There's also a thriving buy-sell-trade community for people who aren't willing to wait eight months or more to get their hands on a couch. The group that Bierbach admins, Nugget Comfort Chatter & BST, has nearly 63,000 members.

At this point, Bierback said, the group is about more than just a beloved product — it's a community.

"The group has grown a ton since I first joined and it's been really amazing to connect with so many different caregivers from around the country," she said.