I created party atmosphere when I gave birth, says Scarlett Moffatt after arrival of baby boy healed rift with her mum
SCARLETT MOFFATT loves nothing more than a good shindig — even when she is giving birth.
In fact, the reality star was so desperate for a “party” vibe as she delivered her first child, Jude, she stuck on some tunes during her caesarean section.
The former Gogglebox regular, 33, revealed she had an album packed full of her favourite cheesy tracks belting out as she lay on the operating table, with medics and fiancé Scott Dobinson, 36, by her side.
Recalling the moment she became a mum in June, Scarlett said: “Jude came at 35 weeks, five weeks early.
“My waters broke, but then Jude’s head was acting like a plug. So then I had to have a C-section, but again it was lovely.
“I really enjoyed myself . . . you can feel everything but it’s just not painful. Jude was actually lifted out of me to Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like A Woman! And then my placenta was born to the Macarena.
“I think it was Absolute Party Classics or something like that.
“I was like, ‘I want quite a party atmosphere — I just want to pretend I’m anywhere except on a slab getting cut open’.”
It is clear that the couple’s little boy, who was delivered at Durham Hospital, near her luxury home in the county, has helped repair Scarlett’s strained relationship with her own mother.
We told in 2021 how Betty, 52, had nicked £50,000 from her daughter to fund a gambling habit after using online casinos during lockdown.
Betty, who has worked for millionaire Scarlett since she won I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! in 2016, took cash from the star’s accounts, expecting to pay it back when she had a change of fortune.
‘I gag at nappies’
But a big win never happened, leading to a confession that left Scarlett “betrayed and confused”.
However, the telly favourite vowed to help her mum, who checked into rehab, and now Betty and her husband Mark have been stepping up for babysitting duties.
Scarlett, who got engaged to Scott this month, admitted that now she has a little one she prefers staying at home to nights out.
Describing how family members have been happy to watch Jude so she can go on dates with her hubby-to-be, she said: “There’s nights with my mam and dad.
“Scott’s mum and dad had him overnight as well. Loads of aunties and everything would love it, but I’m just like, ‘He’s my baby’.
“Scott’s like, ‘Oh, why doesn’t he go out every Saturday or every Friday and we can have a date night?’. But I like Jude being there.”
Lovable Scarlett and her family found fame in 2014 when they became regular cast members on the Channel 4 reality TV show Gogglebox.
A former ballroom dancer, she has appeared in a number of other programmes, including Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and last year’s BBC show Pilgrimage, as well as guest hosting on Heart Radio.
But now she is back at work thanks to Scott, who has been allowed to take six months off from his police officer job to help her as they adapt to parenthood.
And she is hoping he will remain on leave for up to FIVE YEARS.
Scarlett said: “I’m hoping he takes a career break. When you’re in the police you can take a five-year career break. I quite like him being daddy day care. It’s lovely, he’s such a good dad.
“Obviously, when you go back to work, I know it’s really, really hard for people because of childcare and all that stuff.
“So I feel really fortunate that Scott’s always here. I just don’t ever want him to go back to work. I’m like, ‘Please stay!’”
Scarlett told how Scott is a hands-on father — saving her from some of the more yucky jobs.
She said: “He does most of the pooey nappies because I am a gagger. I know I should probably be able to stand my own kid’s s***e, but it makes my eye twitch, so I’m very fortunate that Scott is not fazed and he’ll do most of the pooey nappies.”
Scarlett sailed through her pregnancy, craving healthy honeydew melon, and flaunted her blossoming belly in figure-hugging outfits.
She told Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe’s Parenting Hell podcast: “I do feel very blessed in the pregnancy that I had.
“I loved it. For the first time in my life I could wear bandeau dresses and not be like I had to breathe in.
“It’s like a very, very tight dress, not very forgiving, it shows everything. I purposefully wore them because I was like, ‘I’m never going to be able to wear these ever again in my life, so I can wear them throughout my whole pregnancy, breathe out, not be bothered’.
“I lived in dresses the whole pregnancy. I absolutely loved it.
“I was lucky and I feel I have to say that because I’ve had loads of friends who’ve had sickness — I didn’t get any of that.”
Scarlett insists Jude is the perfect baby — much to the annoyance of her family.
She said: “I love it. All of my family were like, ‘I really hope you have a kid like you’.
“I think they meant that in a bad way. I must have been a really naughty kid because my mam and dad then waited 16 years to have another.
“But Jude is just wonderful. I’m one of those really annoying people that when people go, ‘Are you getting no sleep?’, I’m like, ‘He sleeps 12 to seven every night since he was two weeks old’.
“He’s the most chilled baby ever. I was the type of kid that even from about the age of four, I remember being sent to my room and writing letters and posting them underneath the living room door.
“Being like, ‘I’m so sorry family that I’m your child — take me back to the shop, get a different one’. Manipulative, I think is the word I was.
“I’d write letters to make them feel guilty about sending me to my room.”
Scarlett said once, when she wasn’t allowed another chocolate biscuit, she got hold of a whole pack and put them in her pyjama bottoms, then sat by the gas fire so they would melt.
And she joked that she has made the most of the recovery period following her C-section, adding: “It’s nice being waited on. I milked it, to be honest.
“I was on the couch, I could reach for a cup . . . ‘Oh, Scott, can you pass my cup for me’. It was wonderful, I didn’t have to do anything for ages.”
For the next few weeks Scarlett’s focus will be on creating the perfect first family Christmas for Jude.
She has arranged a non-stop schedule of Santa visits starting next week — although she admits they are more for her benefit.
The bubbly star said: “I can’t wait to have the magic of Christmas back. We’ve got it back again (after the pandemic), which is lovely. I think it’s 12 times we’re meeting Santa I love Christmas so much. I’m so excited.”
Despite her praise for Scott as a partner and dad, Scarlett said there was one thing that irritates her — that he dresses Jude in outfits based on films he likes, which tends to ruin Scarlett’s photo albums.
She said: “I don’t know if this is a bloke thing — but some of the outfits!
“I like Jude to look nice every day, so even when we do mundane things I can take pictures so that when he’s older I can show him. Or when he has a partner he can go, ‘Oh, look at these little photos’.
“Some of the outfits — like Star Wars tops. Scott keeps getting him outfits with Star Wars on and things.
“Jude doesn’t know if he likes Star Wars yet so stop having him in tops saying ‘My Little Stormtrooper’.”
Scarlett added: “I think when he looks back, Jude will be able to tell when Mam’s dressed him and when his dad dressed him.
“Scott’s like ‘Yeah, but he’s my son as well, I want to buy him stuff’. And I’m like, ‘Well, buy him stuff that you know I would dress him in — so when you see a nice beige outfit, buy that one’.
“He dresses him like a little baby Yoda or Batman. Jude doesn’t know if he likes Batman yet.
“It’s mother’s instinct. I carried him in my belly, I know.
“I always say, ‘You become a mam when you find out that you’re pregnant, but you become a dad when the baby’s here’, so technically I’ve been a parent longer, so I get to decide what outfits he wears!”
But for all her upbeat joy, Scarlett vowed she is not taking any of it for granted.
“I know how lucky I am,” she admitted. “Every day I’m like, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’.”