For everyone who loves a little one.

A word that did not exist

Every young child is surrounded by people who love them. A mother, a father. A grandmother who flies in for the holidays. A nanny who knows exactly how they like their toast. A family friend who feels like an aunt. A best friend from nursery. For the child, they are simply the people who make the world feel safe. We looked for one word to hold all of them. It did not exist.

Our youngest daughters, twins, spent their first years in Shanghai, where the person who cares for a child is often called Ayi: a gentle word that carries no hierarchy, only warmth. It stayed with us.

So we invented a word: Noï. Short and soft, easy for small mouths, the same for everyone who cares. Only later did we learn that noi means “we” in Italian and “little” in Thai. We, and the little one.

Noï is anyone in a child's circle of love: a parent, a grandparent, a nanny, a relative, a friend big or small.

A nest made by many hands

A nest is never built by one bird alone. Each twig is brought by someone who cares. A story read by grandma, a walk with the nanny, a game with a best friend, a bedtime ritual with papa: together, the Noïs build the child's nest. We called it NoïNest.