Pregnant mom of 4 Hilaria Baldwin finds alone time in the tub: 'It just allows me to be me'
Hilaria Baldwin has experienced her fair share of anxiety and stress during the coronavirus pandemic — she and husband Alec Baldwin have four children under the age of 6 and their fifth on the way after all — but also has found the extra time with her family to be special.
“Normally we wouldn't be spending 24/7 together when the kids go to school and my husband and I will go to work and you get to go have dinner with friends, you know, all of the things that we do,” she says during Yahoo’s Reset Your Mindset event. “But we're not doing that. We're all together. So I'm trying to be extremely grateful for this time, especially, I'm holding out hope that this is not forever. I'm pretty sure it's not forever, but it might be for awhile. It is a time that we will never forget for the good parts and the bad parts, and just realize that this can be a really good bonding time.”
One of the bad parts? Attempting to step into the role as teacher while juggling working from home herself.
“It's tough because sometimes your kids don't want to do it and you have to force them to do it and you have to teach them,” the yoga expert reveals. “Sometimes we have to do things that we don't want to do. A lot of it is figuring out what the teacher exactly wants us to do. Because my kids aren't old enough to be able to read the email alone and then just do it. I have to actually sit there and do it with them.”
Because her children are so young, Hilaria says “they don't know, obviously, that the virus is around, but...we don't really talk about the really, really difficult parts just because emotionally and developmentally, they're not there yet.”
It's so important because it just allows me to be me. Hilaria Baldwin
Emotionally for Hilaria, she gets stressed out “just like everyone else, I'll read the news and, and I try to read less news than I typically do.” She’s also finding time for herself, prioritizing the things that make her feel like her best self, such as exercising, eating well and taking baths, which she does after the kids are asleep and Alec is doing the dishes post-dinner so she can get some alone time. “It's so important because it just allows me to be me,” she says of her nightly bathroom ritual. “It just feels like it's like my private space where I can close the door and be like, ‘OK, it's just me.’ And that's a really important feeling for moms because it's rare.”
Hilaria’s deeply empathetic towards her fellow parents, especially those who are welcoming their first children. “For me I'm lucky in that I've been pregnant like a million times and I have four children. I'm lucky in terms of that this is not my first time around,” she says. “I feel for a lot for women who are having their first baby because I think that must be really scary, not just being pregnant and giving birth, but the after part,” adding, “to keep a child well in Corona is extra scary, especially when you're a first time parent and everything scares you.”
That doesn’t mean Hilaria isn’t scared — she is — but she’s attempting to maintain a positive outlook. “Perspective and gratitude is really helping me a lot. Whenever I get down I always think about how much worse it could be and how much worse it could be all of a sudden makes my situation seem not as bad. And with that it pulls me up a little bit and allows me to have a lightness and strength to be able to attack my problem.”
For the latest coronavirus news and updates, follow along at https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please reference the CDC and WHO’s resource guides.
