Kelly Preston
Mommy Madness No routine and more kids at 50.
With her husband, John Travolta, 58, in hot water after being accused of a slew of sexual assaults, Kelly Preston has remained under media lockdown, with one source spilling, "She's been instructed to be silent and stay away from the public eye until further notice."
But just weeks before the scandal broke, Kelly spoke about wanting more kids at 50 and how she's worried about how stopping breastfeeding son Benjamin - who Hollywood-watchers say "still has no schedule and shares the bed with her and hubby John" - will affect her. The Old Dogs actress is still breastfeeding her 17-month-old son up to five times a day and three times a night, revealing, "When I stop, it's going to be really hard on me. I love the closeness… He'll come up and point and go, ‘Mama, more!'"
Preston's 16-year-old son, Jett, tragically passed away from a seizure back in 2009, and she credits her new son Ben with helping her through the grief, recently telling Amanda de Cadenet in a TV interview that she wants more kids, saying, "I feel like I would like to have another child, but it might be pushing it."
Alicia Silverstone
Mommy Madness Bird-feeding, baby vegan diet.
"He attacks my mouth and I think it's adorable," was Clueless actress Alicia Silverstone's response on her blog, The Kind Life, to the public backlash after she posted a video of her 10-month-old-son Bear sucking on her mouth to eat her regurgitated food. "He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I'm eating," she said. Adding, "It's a part of the weaning process, so while I'm still breast-feeding it's just a way to introduce him to food when he doesn't have teeth and he can't chew." And Alicia and her rock radio host husband, Chris Jarecki, have staunchly defended their unusual parenting technique, despite nutritionists and doctors saying the bird-style feeding can pass dangerous bacteria and viruses onto the baby. But perhaps more worrying is the fact that little Bear follows a strict meat, fish, dairy and even honey-free vegan diet, which, combined with the fact that vegan Alicia's breast milk will be lacking in minerals, may halt his growth, eye and brain development and reduce his ability to absorb minerals and protein.
Angelina Jolie
Mommy Madness Saving the kids' bloody bandages and sugar addictions.
Mother-of-six Angelina Jolie has developed many a weird parenting habit say sources close the family. First, there's the fact that she collects her kids' used bandages as a way of creating bloody art installations, with her ex-assistant telling In Touch, "When Angelina's kids get cuts and scrapes, she saves their discarded bandages in a jar. She thinks she's being edgy and artistic." And another source has revealed that her brood of six are on an out of control sugar diet, spilling, "The kids eat fast food every day, doughnuts for breakfast. Shiloh's a sugar addict, screaming when she's cut off." Adding, "After Shiloh has five cookies in a row and Maddox downs his third orange Fanta, it's crazy hour. Toys fly, kids melt down into tantrums, there's fighting; it's just a zoo."
The family are also famous co-sleepers, with Ange revealing that when Pax was three he shared a bed with her and Brad. "It's kind of nice, him immediately knowing and feeling comfortable with us," she said. "Madd slept with me until Brad and I got together. They're fun to sleep with. We have family sleep on Sundays, too, everybody sleeps together."
Alanis morissette
Mommy Madness Extended breastfeeding.
While most say the length of time a woman breastfeeds for is a subjective choice, 37-year-old Alanis thinks that breastfeeding 16-month-old son, Ever, means he'll need less therapy than kids who wean earlier.
"I'll be breastfeeding until my son is finished and he weans," said the singer. "I think it affords the child, when he grows up, to have a lot less therapy to go to. For me, I protect his safety and his well-being and his attachment. That stage of development is a very important stage." And her son also sleeps in the same bed as her and her rapper husband, Mario Treadway. "We're definitely skin-on-skin connected as much as possible," she boasted, adding that Ever's presence doesn't get in the way of romance. "[My husband's] a very robust virile man," she revealed. "You gotta take care of your husband."
Mayim Bialik
Mommy Madness Kids watched her labour and no toilet training.
Famous as the floppy-hat-wearing star of 90s sitcom Blossom, Mayim's now enjoying fame advocating, as author of attachment-parenting book Beyond The Sling, that children should never wear diapers, should sleep in the same bed as their parents, watch their siblings being born and be breastfed until they themselves choose to stop. The Big Bang Theory actress and her stay-at-home dad hubby, Mike Roosevelt, are parents to seven-year-old Miles and three-and-a-half-year-old Fred, with Mayim revealing, "Fred was born at home, and Miles watched the whole thing from a high chair eating granola. We gave him a choice, we prepared him with videos. Even during, I said, ‘If Miles wants to go the next room he can!' But he said, ‘No, I fine!' He got freaked out by the blood, but it was still nice."
And the couple also choose not to put their children in nappies, insisting, "The entire concept is not to potty train them. I don't clap my hands and say, ‘Good job'. It's a very Zen experience of learning signals."
And the 36-year-old actress, who admits to still breastfeeding her three-and-a-half-year-old, revealed that the family live in a one-bedroom apartment, sleeping in one room on mattresses on the floor, and eschew toys as "consumerism." Adding, "There's money in the formula and diaper industry. I'm just saying."
Hilary Duff
Mommy Madness Keeps the umbilical cord in a Ziploc bag.
Many people keep mementos to remind them of their baby's first days - however these usually fall into the category of taking lots of photos or baby handprints. But 24-year-old mum to two-month-old son, Luca Cruz, chose to stash away her umbilical cord stump, which dries up and falls off a baby's belly button within 10 to 21 days after they're born. "It was a huge one, and I wanted to keep it, but my husband was like, ‘No, no, that's gross, you can't keep it!', but I secretly kept it," said the Cheaper By The Dozen star of her hockey player hubby, Mike Comrie, 31. "It's in a Ziploc bag in the back of my make-up drawer. Luca's going to think I'm a freak!"
January Jones
Mommy Madness Ate her own placenta.
She has yet to reveal who the father of her eight-month-old son Xander is, but the 34-year-old Mad Men star was more than happy to spill all about how she ate her own placenta after giving birth.
"It's not witch-crafty or anything," the star said to justify eating her own organ. "I suggest it to all moms… Your placenta gets dehydrated and made into vitamins. It's something I was hesitant about, but we're the only mammals who don't ingest our own placentas." While January chose to pay a company around Dh1,000 to turn her placenta into pill form, which she takes whenever she feels tired or down, some new mums freeze the placenta and add it as ice cubes to juices or smoothies, or even make a dish that would normally contain meat - like a lasagna - and use the placenta as the protein.
And author of The Placenta Cookbook, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, claims the nutrients in the placenta may "alleviate postpartum depression, aid in breast milk production and lactation, act as a uterine tonic, and replenish nutrients lost during pregnancy." But there have been no actual medical studies to back this up, and the general consensus in the science community is that the practice is neither harmful nor helpful.
