Pregnant for the second time, actress Vanessa Lachey told American Baby magazine she didn’t feel an “instant bond” with her first baby bump.
“While pregnant with my son, Camden, I felt guilty because everyone told me about this love I'd feel, and I wasn't there yet,” she said in a story that appeared in the magazine’s December/January 2015 edition. “I remember asking [husband] Nick [Lachey], ‘Is something wrong with me? I've wanted this my whole life, and I'm forcing myself to have those feelings.’ For me, the love really flowed when I found out the baby was a boy. That's when I could finally bond, once I knew ‘it’ was a him.”
The "Dads" star, 34, also recalled being “worried about getting everything right” when she was pregnant with Camden about three years ago, but concluded that kind of thinking was a “waste of time” once he was born in September 2012.
“I no longer thought, ‘Will I be able to do this?’ My instincts really did kick in,” she said. “We make mistakes, too, but that’s what learning is. That’s the beauty of it.”
Vanessa, who is now expecting a baby girl with Nick, also preached patience and encouraged fellow parents to avoid making comparisons on social media. “Don't feel like you're not doing enough when you see a mom posting about making applesauce after you bought it,” she said.
The actress isn’t the only celebrity mom dishing advice of late:
- Kelly Ripa said she told her teenage daughter, who’d broken a house rule, that she’s not her friend, she’s her mom.
- Jennifer Lopez declared “I can be an awesome mom and a sexy woman.”
- And Olivia Wilde showed solidarity with other mothers who breastfeed in public when she invited Glamour to shoot a photo of her breastfeeding in a diner booth, because “this is a part of my real life.”
Follow TODAY.com writer Chris Serico on Twitter.