Christina Ricci Shares the Heartbreaking Reason Why Her Son Was ‘Never Sleep Trained’

Navigating parenthood — and its inevitable lack of sleep — is hard for anyone. But if you don’t have a supportive partner, it can be even worse. Christina Ricci experienced this with her firstborn son Freddie, 9, when she was married to his dad James Heerdegen, and she recently shared how this lack of help influenced her son’s ability to fall asleep on his own.

“There are certain things like my son was never sleep trained because I had to go back to work when he was 2 months old,” the Yellowjackets star shared in an emotional interview on the Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty podcast, per PEOPLE. While she was at work, her ex-husband “wouldn’t help me at all with anything.” She said Freddie had to sleep in the same bed with her “just to get enough sleep to be able to work the next day.”

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Can you imagine? She was so exhausted from working that it’s no wonder she didn’t have the energy to work on sleep training as well. Her husband should have stepped up to handle his load of child-rearing duties, but instead, he left it all to Ricci to do.

In a Sept. 2022 interview with PEOPLE, Ricci noted the incredible difference between her daughter’s and son’s sleeping habits. “The fact that I can put her down in her crib and she just goes to sleep when my 8-year-old still sleeps with me is amazing,” Ricci told the outlet. She said that Freddie “screamed himself hoarse and started banging his head against the crib railing” when she tried sleep training him. (Handling that with no help from a partner?! That sounds awful.)

“But with Cleo, when we decided to try it and see how she would react to it, she just sort of whined for about seven minutes and then laid down, clutched her little unicorn and went to sleep,” Ricci continued. “It was like she was ready and she wanted to do it, and it was right for her.”

Ricci and Heerdegen were married in 2013 and split in 2020. She has been married to hair stylist Mark Hampton since 2021, and they share daughter Cleo, 2. Her experience leaving her daughter to go back to work was much different, thanks to having a more supportive husband this time around.

“I went and shot Wednesday in Romania when she was 2 months old, and Mark did every single night all night long,” Ricci said Let’s Be Clear, per PEOPLE “Like I just slept and worked the next day, and it made such a huge difference. It was so much easier this time around. You know, you have to have a good supportive partner.”

It’s so true — and it warms our hearts to know that Ricci finally has that supportive partner in Hampton.

However, that doesn’t mean being a working (and traveling) mom comes without its challenges. On the podcast, Ricci explained that when she was commuting back and forth to Vancouver to film Yellowjackets, Cleo “didn’t know me.” Ricci shared, “We had no bond. So that was very upsetting.”

“My kids do not like it when I travel. When I’m away, I try to take my son with me as much as I can,” she continued, adding that paying for four flights to go back and forth with her all the time is “just too expensive.”

She compromises by both coming home as often as she can and bringing her son with her (and going on special trips like to Disneyland and New York City) when she can. “I try to get back as often as I can,” The Addams Family star said. “I think really the thing that I learned, especially with my son, is mixing him into my work life. Why can’t he come for the weekend to a convention and see what it’s like?”

In a previous interview with SheKnows, Ricci shared how she works to “compartmentalize [her] workplace and home life.”

“It is difficult,” Ricci told us about balancing it all. “I am so lucky to have an amazing nanny and a really amazing, supportive husband. All I do when I’m able to be home is hang out at the house and hang out with the dogs and with the kids. I really don’t do anything else but that when I’m not working.”

It may have been a difficult road to get here, but it seems like Ricci is doing her best to follow her dreams and make her kids feel taken care of and loved at the same time. And having a caring, dependable partner is making all the difference.

Read about how Heidi Klum, Angelina Jolie, and more celebrity parents co-sleep with their kids.

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