In a recent interview, the newly engaged Brenda Song spoke about balancing career and home life with her fiancé Macaulay Culkin, and their nine-month-old son, Dakota.
“I was trying to do it all,” she said of transitioning going back to work at 12 weeks postpartum. “That was really difficult.”
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“I had no idea what I was doing,” she shared elsewhere in the interview. “I went back to work so early. It was harder than I thought. I pride myself on always being first on set. So to be like, ‘Hey, I need 20 minutes to pump,’ was difficult. The hours away from my son took a toll on me,” the actress shared.
“Learning my own boundaries while trying to take care of my son and my family — that was hard. But I had a great support system and knew my son was taken care of; I just had FOMO. Missing those hours with my newborn son, it pains me, but at the end of the day, Mama’s got to put food on the table. You’ve got to make those sacrifices. Hopefully, he’ll understand.”
“My fiancé and I are very hands-on,” Song shared of not having a nanny.
“We don’t have a nanny, but my mom has been here with us since my son was born. He’s 9 months old now. When I was working, my mom would bring him to set so I could breastfeed and see him during the day. People tell you a lot about labor and pregnancy, but not about the fourth trimester. To my girlfriends that are pregnant I say, make sure you have help. Because your instinct is to want to do it all and you physically can’t.”
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She also spoke on how she and Culkin connect as parents.
“My [fiancé] and I always get into bed and chat about our days and the next day,” she said.
“When I was working he’d wake up with me to chat. Now we do it at night, after our son goes down. It calms me. It sounds small, but I cherish it. It’s nice to wind down with someone you love.”
And when it comes to keeping a tight ship on the “I think when you and your partner have kids, especially the first few months, you don’t have the patience to be polite with each other,” she said. “Being communicative when you need help is so important. Instead of having set duties, we just feel each other out. I’ll be putting my son down and my partner is like, ‘Let me feed the animals and get dinner ready.’”