Hilaria Baldwin on her life as a ‘grandma’ and mum of 7 at 39 years old.

Hilaria Baldwin is one busy woman. She is a 39-year-old mum of seven kids aged between 10 and zero and is now a step-grandmother after Alec's daughter Ireland gave birth to a baby girl.

“I love being a grandmother,” Hilaria said in an interview with US online parenting magazine Romper.

“My kids get a kick out of it,” she said of their new roles in baby Holland's life. 

“They feel like they’re so grown up; they’re like, ‘Well, I can do this because I’m an uncle now.’ I send things to Ireland all the time. My favourite swaddle or my favourite bathtub or whatever. The towels, all these things.”

With seven of her own children, Hilaria sure deserves to be an authority on all things parenting. She says that certain friends consider her the "Tiger Woods of parenting" and come at her for all the advice.

Watch: Hilaria shares details of date nights with Alec Baldwin for Romper. Post continues below. 

Yoga teacher and wellness entrepreneur Hilaria married 65-year-old actor Alec Baldwin in 2012. They live in a luxury penthouse apartment in New York but have homes in both Long Island and Vermont. 

The couple employs a cast of nannies and babysitters to help them run the family and do the work juggle, but Hilaria says she is the one to give her kids their twice-daily baths, and meals and she sits and helps with homework. She has also been breastfeeding on and off for a decade which is A LOT by anyone's standards.

Hilaria says that their large family and high-profile celebrity status means she gets plenty of unwanted advice.

“People like to have a lot of opinions about women’s reproductive choices,” Hilaria says of the constant feedback.

“Either we have too many kids, or we have too few. We don’t do it exactly as we should. We don’t put the hat on the baby. And then people say, ‘Why doesn’t your baby have a hat?’ And I say, ‘Would you like to come and put the hat on the baby? She’ll take it off and throw it at you.’”

While baby Ilaria is just nine months old, Hilaria and Alec had their first baby, daughter Carmen, in 2013 two years after they married. She then had three boys in a row, Rafael aka Rafa (aged eight), Leonardo aka Leo (six) and Romeo (five). 

At the end of 2019, the star experienced a devastating miscarriage before going on to have Eduardo in September 2020.

"We had a baby last night," Hilaria wrote in September. "He is perfect, and we couldn't be happier."

Two months later, Hilaria told People she felt content with five children.

"During times of COVID, it very much feels like we're done," she said.

"Everybody's asking me this question. I don't know. I've said in the past that I was done when I wasn't done. I think, right now, I'm so tired. And I feel, just with COVID – it's just insanity." 

But Hilaria and Alec were far from done, as just five months later their sixth baby, a girl named Maria Lucia aka Marilu, arrived via surrogate.

"María Lucía Victoria and Eduardo Pau Lucas: our babies who bring light into our lives — almost like twins, we love you so much," Hilaria posted on Instagram in March 2021.

Hilaria and The Baldwinitos. Image: Instagram @romper

The arrival of their sixth child so shortly after their fifth and 'final' baby caused a lot of confusion and backlash from the public. But as Hilaria tells Romper, people didn't understand the backstory.

In 2019 after the miscarriage of their daughter, Hilaria who was then only 35, tried IVF. She did a round of IVF and ended up with two viable embryos. She had another devastating miscarriage four months along, so then decided to use the other embryo but via a surrogate.

“I had this other embryo [from the IVF], and I was afraid to carry it, but I didn’t want to leave it frozen. 

"I felt that for some reason, my body rejected an IVF experience, [and so it would again]. I know that sounds irrational, but sometimes when we are going through this, we can have feelings that might not always make sense.”

Listen to season 2 of Mamamia's podcast for all things pregnancy Hello Bump. Post continues below. 

In the meantime, she became pregnant with Edu and then the surrogate carried Marilu, hence their closeness in age, that meant she could also breastfeed the two of them at the same time. Hilaria says she is still in touch with her surrogate.

“To have that experience of being in the delivery room, and helping her push, and holding onto her leg, and cutting the umbilical cord. It was really meaningful,” she said.

After having so many babies it's interesting that Hilaria says she doesn't love pregnancy but loves the birthing part the most.

“I love giving birth. This last time around, I pushed her out in a minute! Giving birth is like going down a water slide that’s really scary. And then you get to the bottom, and you’re like, ‘I want to do this again.’”

Unsurprisingly, she also loves the baby stage and sees it as "creating love" and whether baby Ilaria is to be their last baby, well, birth control may play a role in that decision.

“Every single time I have a baby, my OB writes down the vasectomy doctor on a Post-it, and I bring it home to Alec. He hasn’t done it yet."

Hilaria Baldwin and four baby Baldwinitos. Image: Instagram @romper

Hilaria tells Romper that while Alec hasn't yet had his vasectomy, he has just come out of the hospital for a hip replacement and is getting about slowly with the help of a walker.

It has been a terrible couple of years for the family after Alec was involved in a shooting incident on the set of his movie Rust in October 2021, and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins lost her life. 

While criminal charges against Alec have been dropped, there are ongoing lawsuits.  

“Obviously, the world has seen us go through something that is unimaginable,” she says.

“But there’s another family that has suffered on the most extreme level. And every day, our hearts and souls are with them.”

With paparazzi and media camped outside their door and extreme online abuse, Hilaria says she has felt "lonely and isolated" many times. 

“It is a ridiculous thing to be cruel to another person,” she says of the toxic online commentary about her and her family online. Yet in spite of the hate, she has remained online and in the public eye.

“It’s such an amazing mom community,” she says of her Instagram account which has close to a million followers. 

“The majority on it are fun, kind people, who just want to be nice to each other. I’m the type of person that, if I follow you, I will probably like almost every single one of your posts. Because I know how good that feels,” 

In a world where it is increasingly rare for celebrities to share photos of their kids, fans lap up the often candid selfies and family snaps of Hilaria and her 'Baldwinitos'.  

“This is probably, most definitely, almost completely my last baby," she tells Romper of nine-month-old Ilaria, but there's a final caveat.

"I was putting away my maternity clothes recently and was like, ‘I’m afraid to give them away, because then I’ll find out I’m pregnant.’”

Laura Jackel is Mamamia's Family Writer. For links to her articles and to see photos of her outfits and kids, follow her on Instagram and TikTok.

Feature Image: Instagram @hilariabaldwin

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