Chrissy Teigen gets candid about motherhood and pregnancy. 

By Rebecca Shinners
April 27, 2018

There's a reason social media is obsessed with Chrissy Teigen's family: The relationship between mom, husband John Legend, and 2-year-old Luna is both incredibly sweet and relatable. Whether she's tweeting about her weird pregnancy eating habits or comparing her gray hair to Cruella de Vil, Teigen always keeps it hilariously real.

And now, she's partnering with Pampers as the first-ever Creative Consultant for the brand's new Pampers Pure collection, made with those parents who are searching for natural diaper and wipe options in mind. "Finally, there's something out there where you don't have to compromise," explains Teigen. "You don't have to choose between having really cute diapers or protection that you really trust, you can have both." As part of the partnership, Teigen will collaborate with Pampers on new diaper prints. 

Here, Teigen opens up to Health about her favorite motherhood moments, raising kids in the time of body positivity and social media movements, and how her pregnancy has affected her beauty routine and eating habits.

What's your favorite part about being a mom?

"I really love this age. She's almost 2 and seeing her little personality develop and seeing, even when she's a cheeky little butthead, I'm like, I kind of appreciate it, because I was a cheeky little butthead. I still am now. I love seeing parts of John in her, I love the new sentences she comes up with. I love seeing how wildly excited she gets when she makes people laugh. Like she will just light up. When she sees that you laughed at something, it's kind of the worst thing you can do, is laugh at one of her jokes because then it won't stop. She'll just do it over and over again 'cause she's so excited that you liked it. It's full of little surprises every day. You don't know where they get some of the things they get and then you also do know exactly where they get some of the things they get."

So you can kind of see yourself in her?

"Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's like a parrot. She'll say things in the same exact tone, it's so funny. It really is." 

Do you think she'll be excited to have a little brother?

"I think she's gonna be tough, honestly. I could easily say 'Oh, she's gonna be so wonderful,' but I think she really enjoys being the star and, you know, it's your firstborn. There's just something so special about that. It's the time where you see each other for the first time as parents, everything's new to you, everything's amazing and magical and hopeful. And hopefully the second time around, we're just as excited when little boy grabs a ball for the first time or rolls over, and I think we will be. But she loves a big kid. She just really looks up to big kids, even if they're like a week older, I swear, she knows. But when she's the bigger kid, she tends to be a little bit tougher. We'll warm her up to him hopefully."

I also saw that you've said you love bathtime with her.

"Yeah, it's my favorite. John thinks it's the cutest thing on the planet, too. He's like, 'It's just so natural and pretty,' and we call it Splash Splash. I say 'Luna, Splash Splash' and she's just like, sure enough, immediately she'll rip [her clothes] off and rubs her belly and she's like, 'Ready!' She can't even wait for the water to get warm. She's just so excited for it, and we bring crayons in there and, yeah, she loves it. She loves applying her own shampoo and sitting. And I like kind of lay on my side in the bathtub now 'cause it's just so hard to sit up even, and then she just lays on her side. There's something really natural and bonding about it. It's adorable, honestly. Her wet little head."

Do you have any other fun bathtime stories? Is Luna going to be a beauty pro?

"Honestly, she loves grooming of any sort. She'll hand me my razors, she'll hand me everything and then she loves biting on my electric toothbrush. Nothing on it or anything, she's just like [whirring sounds] and I'm like 'That's great, she's already brushing her own teeth, that's good.' But yeah, it's kind of just a nightly routine where she knows that we're gonna have a bath, you're gonna get rubbed down in coconut oil, it's just a calming thing where she knows it's night-night time. If there's chaos right before bed...she tends to have wild dreams and so it's nice to be able to have a wind-down time."

Are there any beauty products you use every day?

"Oh gosh. I'm either fully made up by somebody else or not at all. I don't blow dry... I haven't blow-dried my own hair in like six years, so it's either wet or totally done."

Do you air-dry your hair instead?

"I can't even do that. I'm like a top knot, wet, I don't even care anymore. But one thing I am crazy about are body lotions and body serums, especially with all the stretch marks. I'm just like very prone to stretch marks. It happens very quickly, they sneak up on me, have had them since I was really, really young, and so I'm very neurotic about doing layers and layers of creams."

Do you use these creams to get rid of stretch marks?

"No. I don't believe in... I am a firm believer that no cream will sew together ripped skin. That's bonkers to me that anyone even buys those, and I'm definitely never going to work for a stretch mark cream thing, but no, just preventative. I just live with the ones I have, I'm cool with that... yeah now I just do what I can. That's hard."

Exactly, we're always talking about body positivity and accepting yourself for who you are.

"Well, the thing that was big to me was I was lucky enough to be on sets of Victoria's Secret shoots and Sports Illustrated shoots, where I saw the people with the most incredible bodies in the world have stretch marks. I'm so lucky I got to see that because I feel like not enough people get to see that in a world of FaceTune. They think that these faces look like this and these butts look like this. Like, I have seen the most incredible women in the world, not one of them doesn't have stretch marks. I'm not kidding. It's just about who's willing to show them."

For your daughter [to be] growing up when body positivity is such a big conversation, what do you want her to know? 

"When I put my makeup and stuff on, if I'm doing my brows, she's just so enamored and so watchful of it. It's really cute but you also worry, you're like, 'Oh my gosh, am I...' I just want her to know that she never has to do this. And of course, you're like, 'Well, why am I doing it then?' But we do anything we can to make it—you just want to make yourself feel good. You want to make yourself feel confident and beautiful, and I think that's just a natural thing for us. And I don't know, for me it's always a 'less is more' thing and not going with trends, really, but just doing what makes you feel beautiful. I look at her hair every day and it's just something that's so funny to me because it's so wild—it's like perfectly straight in the back, crazy-curly on the sides, and then just wavy on top, and it's just all over the place... I mean, you don't want to make them uncomfortable, but I love how crazy it is. I just think it's so funny. But you want them to just embrace natural. I really hope she does. So we'll see, though."

What is it like to raise kids with social media being so present?

"For all the bad things there are to say about social media, I think it kind of is great. It's at the point now where it's toughened people up and they've had to kind of be able to put up with so many different things online. The fact that we have high schoolers and middle schoolers that are dealing with social media issues and bullying, and being put on blogs and stuff. It's so incredible to me, because I would've never made it through high school if I had been on Twitter and, like, I remember hearing rumors about me just from the end of the lunch table. Now, it's just like spread across the Internet so quickly, and the things that can do to a child are absolutely insane. But what's happened is it's really teaching people a lot more about how people can be as a society, people can be really tough on each other. But it's also teaching people empathy and love, too, and people are just getting really tough, which is sad that they have to be now, but they are. And that's why we have this wave of young people that are so outspoken and able to challenge people. I love that."

How do you take time for yourself and self care?

"Oh, gosh. I'm just so tired and lazy now that my big self-care moment is when I actually sit down and do my layers of lotion. And I guess cooking can be, too, but I cook for other people. I don't ever cook for myself. I don't even eat what I make. Like if you're ever at my house, I will cook for 15 people and be so excited about it and I will not eat it at all. I will order Taco Bell after it happens. Every single time. I'll order McDonald's, I'll order wherever."

So, you like to feed other people?

"Yeah, I really do, and I like seeing their reaction to food and I love getting ambitious and doing something I've never made before and really nailing it or getting it right and learning something along the way. That's why I read cookbooks like they're real novels. I read them on the airplane and stuff, but for me, that is my self care. That time where I can just put on Housewives and have Luanne ranting in the background of me cooking some slow-cooked meal is my happy time. That is my self care. Because that happens around—Luna goes to bed around 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m.—and then it's time to wind down, and I love it."

Have your eating habits changed a lot since your pregnancy? Any weird cravings?

"Ugh, my God. I definitely had cravings the first time. With Luna, I wanted like milk and meat. And with him, I just want carbs, anything hearty. And if I eat something too light, I feel sick. Like, I really had salmon last night. It was so beautiful, it was so delicious and bright, and the salad I made, I was so proud of. Everything was so organic and pure and so wonderful-looking. And then I took pictures of it and then I just threw up immediately. Like, I just could not do it. And then I had a chicken pot pie and I was like, 'Oh, so much better.' So I just want more food. I'm also, what I'm trying to break out of is this 3 a.m. meal that I'm like leaving bed, going downstairs, cooking a full-on something and having a fourth meal. It's been tough. But also, I'm pregnant so I also don't care."