At 24, Hilary Duff was on the “Younger” side when she became a mom in 2012. While her pals were posting pictures from their girls’ getaways, Duff was at home soothing her screaming newborn son, Luca.
“It was a little isolating in the beginning because I didn’t have any friends that had babies yet,” Duff, 31, told Liz Tenety on the The Motherly Podcast. On top of struggling with loneliness, Duff also felt like she had "lost a big chunk" of her identity.
“I don’t remember setting him down for the first three months of life," Duff revealed. "I knew it was the most important, biggest job in the world, but it looks very different once you’re just in the household with the baby by yourself all the time.”
The good news is, when the fog lifted, Duff emerged stronger than ever. “I came out on the other side, like ‘I’m freaking superwoman,’” she declared.
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Duff and Luca’s dad, retired ice hockey player Mike Comrie, split in 2015, after four years of marriage. The former Disney Channel star welcomed daughter, Banks, with her fiancé, Matthew Koma, in October 2018.
Duff thinks she’s more relaxed the second time around. “I worry less at night when she’s sleeping. I feel like with Luca, I would stare at the monitor all night long,” Duff said. She also joked that she sterilizes bottles "for a lot shorter amount of time!”
Though Luca adores his 8-month-old sister, he cried when Duff told him she was pregnant. “That made me feel terrible because he was 6 and he knew exactly what was going on. I was like, ‘Ugh, I can’t undo this for you, and I want to, so bad right now,'" she recalled. "But I think the bigger part of me knew this is going to be a great thing for him.”
Duff was right. Luca fell in love with Banks the day she was born.
“Honestly, he can’t keep his hands off her," Duff gushed. "He's constantly cradling her head and wants to hold her. He's really a top-notch big brother."