Stars’ unusual parenting choices revealed – from Katherine Ryan’s quick potty training to Molly-Mae letting Bambi cry
Celebrities have shared their unconventional parenting approaches, and a few have encountered criticism due to their prominent public personas.
Some of those include, Molly-Mae Hague, Laura Anderson and Stacey Solomon.
Molly-Mae Hague
Molly, 24, rose to fame after appearing on the fifth series of Love Island back in 2019.
She met boxer Tommy Fury during the show, and they are now engaged and have one daughter together named Bambi.
In the past year, Molly-Mae Hague discussed one of her parenting methods, revealing that she has been helping her daughter Bambi learn to fall asleep on her own when feeling tired.
The technique is called “self-settling”.
Molly has been candidly documenting her motherhood journey through her Instagram page and her YouTube channel.
In one video were it Bambi cried through the baby monitor, Molly told her fans: “She’s OK, by the way. I know this seems… some people don’t like to leave their babies to cry, but right now she’s more just sort of grizzling and this is her self-settling.
“This feels really weird I’m sharing this but this is totally normal. She does this every single time I put her down, she’ll roll around in her cot a little bit, she’ll stand up and literally five minutes later she’ll fall asleep.”
Molly added: “It sounds horrible, No one wants to leave their baby to cry, but sometimes you have to because now she’s basically asleep. That’s just how it works for us, personally.”
Laura Anderson
Laura Anderson rose to fame after appearing on the fourth series of Love Island back in 2018.
She was a runner up with Paul Knops losing to Jack Fincham and Dani Dyer.
The Love Island star welcomed daughter Bonnie in September last year with on-off partner, former Hollyoaks actor Gary Lucy.
In a recent Instagram caption, Laura wrote: “What a day and it’s not even over.
“Not 1 nap longer than 20 minutes and fed every hour. I’ve had to let Bonnie cry it out as I’m out of ideas.
“Three weeks today, wow what a turn from angel child to (devil emoji).
“Praying tonight this doesn’t continue and she settles because I am exhausted.
“Whose idea was it to have a baby?”
Laura hit back after being mum-shamed and posted a separate post saying: “When I say cry it out I meant about 2.5 seconds so I could think of another solution as it was the first time she’s cried so hard and I wasn’t able to quickly rectify, chill peeps.
“She skipped a nap and was overtired so it just spiralled. Tomorrow is a new day. Currently unblocking milk ducts in the bath woo!”
Katherine Ryan
Katherine Ryan gained attention when she revealed she had potty trained her eight-month-old son, Fred, using the ‘baby sign language’ technique.
Baby sign language is a way for babies to communicate using gestures or signs before they can speak.
It helps them express their needs and wants, like eat or more, and can reduce frustration for both babies and parents.
Katherine successfully used the technique with her daughter, Violet.
Rachel Riley
Rachel Riley is a TV presenter. She is best known for co-presenting the Channel 4 game show Countdown.
The star has two kids, Maven Aria, three, and Noa, one.
Rachel revealed that she potty-trained her kids whilst they were very young.
She began training her daughter Maven at the age of only three months.
She exclusively told The Sun: “We started potty training Mave when she was really teeny tiny. We saved loads of money, and loads of plastic too.
“And we use cloth nappies — when you’ve got a baby, you’re doing more washing anyway.”
Ferne McCann
Towie star Ferne McCann is another name on the long list of mothers.
She gave birth to her daughter Sunday in 2017.
Ferne has her own TV series called First Time Mum where she documents her motherhood journey.
Before the new series aired, Ferne told OK!: “That’s going to be interesting this time around because obviously as a newborn, you’re not really showing your parenting techniques.
“Whereas in this series, you will see in episode three, I actually get a sleep nanny for Sunday and we do this whole control crying thing which is really controversial, but obviously it was my decision to do that.
“Putting your child in nursery is also not for everyone, but it will be interesting to see.”
She added: “People are going to share their opinions, but you just have to breathe.”
Stacey Solomon
Stacey was recently criticised for declaring that she had a favourite child.
The star who has five kids said that Zach was her favourite child.
During her Christmas TV show, as she crafted photo cutouts of her children, she commented specifically on Zach’s picture. She said: “Ah Zach, my favourite child.
“Just kidding – but he is. I’m just joking again – everyone’s got one, don’t pretend you don’t.”
Some viewers took to social media to express their concerns. One user wrote: “I’d hate to think my parents had a favourite.”
Another added: “No love all the same.”
Abbey Clancy
Abbey Clancy posted a picture of her youngest son who was three at the time.
Fans were quick to comment when they saw a dummy in his mouth.
One user commented: “Is he 4 yeh it increases dental problems.”
Another added: “Isn’t he a bit old for a dummy?” which started a bit of a debate, with one person leaping to Abbey’s defence, replying: “And it’s your business??,” as someone else replied to that: “It’s on social media! She made it everyone’s business.”
Tamara Ecclestone
Tamara Ecclestone is a TV personality. She is the daughter of Formula One billionaire Bernie Ecclestone and is known for her appearances on reality television shows such as Billion $$ Girl and Tamara’s World.
The star has a four-year-old daughter named Fifi.
Tamara revealed that she still breastfeeds her child.
Grazia revealed that Tamara said: “I didn’t expect to breastfeed for as long as I have and I never imagined I’d breastfeed for four years but it’s been the best experience I’ve ever gone through…
“It’s a bit of a running joke in the family – but they don’t mean it in a bad way. They are 100% supportive.
“I guess they chuckle to themselves about it because when I was pregnant, they’d say, ‘Trust us, you’re really going to take to breastfeeding.’ And they were right – they know me better than I know myself.”