Alison Sweeney Talks Pregnancy with CBB

Danielle Friedland

With a few months left in her second pregnancy, Alison Sweeney, 31, is getting ready for her and husband Dave Sanov’s baby girl, due to arrive January 20th. Mom to son Benjamin Edward, 3 ½, Alison is keeping busy hosting The Biggest Loser, starring in Days of Our Lives, as well as making media appearances for Thermos’ Hydration for All campaign, where she stressed the importance of drinking water.

Celebrity Baby Blog’s Danielle spoke exclusively with Alison about how she’s dealing with morning sickness (yes, she still has it), what Ben thinks about having a sister, how she manages to do it all (FYI: she admits she doesn’t!) and how much water she drinks!

Click below for the full interview!

Danielle Friedland

Does Ben understand about the baby?
Ben does understand about the baby. We did talk to him about it, he asks, he’s been to the ultrasound appointments with me. He seems to understand. He says things like, “Is the baby still in your belly?” And stuff like that. But I think he gets it. We talk about it, and say that, “After Christmas, the baby’s going to come.” He talks about wanting to teach her things, how he’s going to be the big brother, be in charge. I don’t know about in charge so much [laughs]. But he knows, and we talk about it. I want to make her a part of his life now, so it’s not like a hurricane that hits in January.

How do you balance all the things you do, not only as a mom, but a pregnant mom?
Ultimately, it’s all about balance. You know, you make decisions every single day, and I was saying to someone else earlier that I’m not supermom, and I would never pretend to be. I don’t think it does anyone any favors to act like someone has all the answers or this is the way you should live your life. You kind of go through every day like, “Okay, this is the decision I’m making today.”

And as a parent, I feel particularly passionate about helping other parents learn the amazing tools that I’ve had, the luxury of being handed to me. For example, information from The Biggest Loser about nutrition and fitness and health. And relationships with Thermos that talks all about how to hydrate your family and your kids. Things like that I become so passionate about because it does start with the children. With your pregnancy, and making sure your children are healthy, and that they have the right life. And they start at the beginning with the right life habits.

With Thermos, when they asked me to be part of an event like this, and again, people ask me, “Well how do you have time for that?” And I make time. It’s important and I think their message is a really important one that people forget. I mean it’s kind of weird, “Drink Water,” but in some ways you think about it, and people really aren’t drinking enough water, especially across the country. And you, for example, have a great forum to share that information with people who might not get it all the time, and who doesn’t want the nice heads-up of what’s the right product to get that’s BPA-free, that is funny and cute. My son is obsessed with his FUNtainer — he has the Lightning McQueen one — and he likes the soccer one, but Lightning McQueen is his favorite.

My daughter will love the Disney Princess one. We have the Hello Kitty. We get anything with a Disney Princess and she’ll eat or drink from it.

You don’t want to have to force your kid to do it. He’s so proud to pop it open himself, take a sip, put it back. Then two seconds later he wants to do it again. I don’t even have to say “Drink water,” he wants to. It’s just so great to have little tools out there to help make your parenting job easier, and who doesn’t want that, you know?

So how much water are you drinking? You look fabulous.

It’s about drinking water, staying hydrated helps your morning sickness. I didn’t have it with Ben. I mean I think in the first trimester, everyone gets a little bit of it, or most people do. Then it went away at the end of the first trimester. And this pregnancy it hasn’t stopped yet, so I’m sort of knocking on wood that it’s going to end soon. But I get a lot of headaches, and staying hydrated helps me combat the headaches, which is a godsend. And I just get thirsty. When you’re pregnant, there’s just so much going on in your body, and the blood, the hormones and whatnot. It’s just nice to have it with me so I don’t forget and don’t lose sight of it, and I can remember how much I’ve had, because when you’re pregnant, you forget things.

Thermos Intak bottle

Yeah, the Intak bottle is great, with the meter that helps you keep track of how many times you’ve refilled it.

It’s clever, it’s so smart. And then it’s easy to take with you, it’s handy. Some of those bottled waters are really big and sort of bulky, so you find yourself not able to use it, and now I can get on an airplane with this, if I bring it empty and fill it up there. It’s so smart. And then you’re actually helping the environment, like we were talking about earlier, you know I get it, some people recycle, not everywhere, here [Las Vegas], for example, find me one recycling bin. And so you just need reusable bottles that help the environment. Which this does.

Earlier today I was talking to this organic company, and I’m drinking from my paper coffee cup, and I felt kind of guilty.

Thermos is the go-to for my husband with his coffee-making obsession in the morning. And keeping hot and cold. It’s just so great to not have to rely on a fast food place. You can take your food with you and keep it, hot or cold or whatever is appropriate.

Does anything else help you with the morning sickness?

You know what helps? The scent of citrus. Mostly orange tangerine oil,or mandarin oil, and I keep a little bottle in my purse and take awhiff of it. Or if someone has an orange, that would sort of be ideal,and you can stick your thumbnail into the peel, and smell that freshcitrus. It helps me totally with my morning sickness.

What can you tell us about what you’re doing different to plan for your daughter than you did with your son. Are there things you’ve realized you don’t really need?

People love to give you stuff when you’re having your first baby, and luckily with your second it’s more about what you need. So we kept a lot of what we had, we have so much great stuff already with Ben, so now we just need pink colors. For the most part it’s just about … I think the FUNtainer is a good example of you don’t need so many toys, you don’t need to kill them with a million educational toys that might not hold their interest. They love to be creative with something really minimal that they can make something of.

Baby Safe Feeder

What was your favorite baby thing with Ben?

Obviously all those basic, useful things. I loved the little thing you put the fruit in when they’re learning to eat — the mesh feeder — because we wanted him to get used to fruits and stuff like that, and at that stage, that’s a genius product.

My daughter just started school today, Ben starts tomorrow. Is this his first year?

No he was in preschool last year. He’s 3 ½, Ben went to school for a half of a year last year, then starts again tomorrow. I get sad. It’s the little things that make you feel like he’s so grown up. The lunch box, his little Thermos, it’s like, it makes you feel like, he walks and he wants to hold it himself, he doesn’t want my help, he wears his backpack, it’s so cute. He loves it. He goes eight hours a day. He loves his friend, he goes to soccer on Fridays, again, we’re really focusing on health and getting him outside. The school he goes to is all about playing outside all day, as much as they can. And it’s about keeping them active and keeping them fit, and minimizing television viewing.

We really encourage that during the school week and are starting him young, so there are no bad habits that are being formed. We just love the idea of giving him for school, the reusable water bottles that help him stay hydrated. In LA, and here [Las Vegas] too, it gets to be like 110 degrees it’s hot, and it can be dangerous, so you kind of think to yourself, “What can we do indoors?” Otherwise you can drench yourself in water and you’ll be fine. Lather up with sunscreen.

What’s his favorite thing to play?
He is just all about trucks and anything that moves with an engine — airplanes, trucks, trains, Lightning McQueen, race cars — he could do that all day and loves it. He doesn’t have a favorite of those things, as long as it has an engine that he can make sound effects of, he likes it.