Chrissy Teigen Says 'There's No Better Feeling' Than Being Out of PPD: 'I'm Really Starting to Feel Like Myself Again'
Chrissy Teigen is continuing to be the realest of the real when it comes to motherhood.
In a new interview with Refinery29, the model and television personality dishes on just how much parenthood has (and hasn’t!) changed her, as well as the aftermath of her battle with postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter Luna Simone, who turns 1 on Friday.
“Just know that there’s a light on the other side,” Teigen, 31, says of the advice she’d gives moms going through a similar experience. “When I was in the midst of everything, I could never imagine myself on the other side of it. Now, I’m able to look at September, October, November, December, and shake my head at how dark and crazy of a period it was.”
Continues Teigen, who is Vita Coco’s newest campaign face, “Unfortunately, you can only really do that when you’re out of it. There’s no other way to explain it. And there’s no better feeling than being out of it.”
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The famously funny beauty - whose husband is musician John Legend, 38 - admits that just because she’s past the brunt of the experience doesn’t mean she’s completely in the clear emotionally.
“You have your good and bad days. I just had a bad day a couple days ago,” she explains. “But the bad days do not outweigh the good days anymore. Just when you think it’s really, really bad, it’s going to get better.”
“So hopefully, if you’re going through something tough you can find some peace in knowing that,” Teigen says.
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As far as how becoming a mother has changed her, the Lip Sync Battle host explains that it’s all about balance - and that while she hasn’t had to completely redefine the person she is, she did have to make sure she was ready to embrace the adaptation requirements that parenthood naturally brings.
“You definitely do have to change. You just have to. But a lot of my friends and I joke whenever I go out, like Oh, here goes cool mom,’ or if I ask for a braid in my hair, they’re like Oh, you want to be cool mom again!’ ” she says. “You naturally change because there’s something else that consumes your mind at all times and I don’t think you can help that, but you can still be cool!”
“But, some people are lucky enough to have people around them who are able to help,” Teigen continues. “Like, my mom lives with us. It’s an incredible experience that I’m able to have, because I can maintain this balance of still having a life, and being a mother, and being a mother with a life, and my life being a mother.”
“And even if you don’t have a live-in mom, if you aren’t afraid to lean on other people when you need it, I don’t think you have to feel like you have to give everything up. But it does change you, and that’s why I think you have to be completely ready.”
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And being completely ready equates to taking the good with the gross.
“Maybe like five minutes ago, I took my nail up Luna’s nose and scraped the most epic booger out you can ever imagine,” Teigen says. “And I put it in a paper towel and I kind of stared at it for a while, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is like a really amazing booger I got.’ Like you get very excited for being able to clear out your kid’s nose.”
She adds, “I have this obsession with digging out her boogers with my pinky. I try to be as gentle as possible, but once I see it, I can’t go to bed knowing it’s in there. I need to get it out. I’ve honestly thought about putting my mouth around her nose and just sucking it out.”
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The outspoken, honest mother of one says she is “in a much better place” and feels “like everything’s coming together really well right now” - which includes the follow-up to her 2016 cookbook Cravings.
“I just started working on the cookbook again yesterday. As I talked about in my essay, I was going through a really dark time, so I had started the cookbook, and then I had to completely put it on pause, because it was a lot for me,” she says. “So as of yesterday, I started doing really great, and I really got back into the mode of cooking.”
“I’m really starting to feel like myself again. I’m going to try to knock out a bunch of recipes, go on tour with John and Luna, live on this tour bus and then come back, do a few more recipes, shoot the cookbook and then have it out for everybody by the beginning of next year.”
