Nev Schulman Shares Wife Laura Perlongo's Emotional Struggle with Third Pregnancy: 'It's Daunting'

Nev Schulman has new episodes of Catfish and a new baby on the way.

"Every kid you have, it feels like you're leveling up and facing a new boss in the video game of parenting," the dad of daughter Cleo James, 4, and son Beau Bobby Bruce, 2, tells PEOPLE. "And sure, you've got experience, but every boss is different. That experience only gets you so far. Because even just with the two kids, the dynamic changes, the needs change, the interactions change the difficulty level."

Schulman, 36, and wife Laura Perlongo plan to reveal the sex of baby No. 3 before their September due date — and they've tempered Cleo's expectations of getting a little sister.

"Cleo was definitely hoping for a girl, but we very quickly convinced her that it was best [to be the only girl] because then she gets to be the only princess," the MTV host says.

"Beau and the other boy will have each other to play with so they won't have to bother her, which may or may not be true. But that's at least what we're telling her."

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Perlongo, 35, opened up on Instagram last month about the struggles of her first trimester, calling the period "a 3 month rainy day with no Gene Kelly in sight."

"Being pregnant with two kids, there's very little time or energy to feel anything really," Schulman says. "And lucky as we are to be having another kid, that doesn't mean that you're always excited and always feel great about it. It's overwhelming, and it's daunting. And there's something about it that is scary because it's like, 'Well, now I'm going to have another kid, how and when am I going to find time for myself and to still feel like I have my own identity?' There's a lot of emotions attached."

As for the two kids they already have, "Beau is probably hitting the terrible twos a little bit harder than Cleo did," the Dancing with the Stars season 29 finalist says. "But at the same time, Cleo was an only child then, and we had all of our attention and time for her. And so I get why it's definitely different for Beau."

Schulman has regular dance parties with Cleo, whom he says "was obsessed with" DWTS.

"[She] loves telling people I was on it and asking when I'm going to be on it again," he continues. "We also got her in ballet class, which she loves. We're a pretty dance-y family."

The new episodes of Schulman's current show Catfish see him and co-host Kamie Crawford continuing to uncover the truth about online relationships via Zoom.

"There's always more to the story," Schulman says. "And you have to push people because it's tough to talk about yourself and to open up and reveal things or admit when you're wrong, especially under the conditions of a television show with strangers."

Participants who may be hesitant to come clean on national TV do receive a monetary incentive, which Schulman estimates to be around $1,000, but the Catfish creator also believes some people appear on the reality show hoping to take advantage of their moment in the spotlight. "Even though I'd like it to be for something else — the plus side of coming on our show is that you get to unburden yourself with the guilt of lying and deceiving someone — hopefully, everyone's better off for it in the end," he says.

The upcoming installment features a few instances in which the catfish turns out to be someone the person knows, as well as someone who suspected they were getting catfished by a person who'd already appeared on the series.

"I find myself, very often, just speechless. I don't know what to say. I know it's my job to say things, but sometimes I just don't know what to say," Schulman says. "I don't want to judge, but the situations are just so unique and specific and unpredictable that I'm at a loss."

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Schulman expects a catfish boom in the coming months thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people inside for the last year-plus — and offering a solid reason not to meet up IRL.

"I feel as though there will be a wave of stories that come in over the next few months because people who met over the last year — who understood that with the pandemic, meeting up wasn't a responsible thing to do or couldn't travel — will now start to say, 'Well, why won't you meet me now?' " he says. "They'll start to realize that maybe it was not so much just the pandemic, but maybe it was something more. I hope I'm wrong, but at the same time, for the sake of my job security, I hope I'm right."

Catfish season 8 returns Tuesday (9 p.m. ET) on MTV.