Rumer Willis opened up about a tough parenting moment that eventually became “healing” for her.
On Thursday, October 12, the new mom — who shares 5-month-old daughter Louetta with boyfriend Derek Richard Thomas — detailed her experience caring for her little one when they all came down with the flu.
“Louetta and I, as well as her dad, actually got really sick recently,” the actress, 35, shared via Instagram. “And we’re all hit pretty hard with a flu and what was incredible was it was the first time, I would say as a mother, that I truly had that moment of going, ‘Wow, how am I going to take care of myself? And take care of her.” But she did it.
“It was almost healing in this way of being able to look at all of those times in the past, where maybe, anxiety, or panic or something has come up and allowing myself to really see what I was capable of because I was also really trying to let her body fight whatever it was fighting,” Willis explained.
While the House Bunny star noted that it was “only really one bad evening,” she that the intensity of her daughter’s sickness helped her realize her strength as a mother.
“I was sitting there, I think it was maybe midnight and I’m holding her in the bath,” Willis recalled. “I remember this moment of just feeling like I’m her whole world. I am her safe place. And I’m who she’s going to call whenever she doesn’t feel good, just like I still call my mother.”
Rumer — who is the eldest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore — added that while any of the family members she might have called for help were out of town, she wouldn’t have wanted to expose them to the illness anyway. (Bruce, 68, is battling frontotemporal dementia.) Instead, she spoke to her fellow mom friends, and recognized that asking for help from her community helped to “cultivate the confidence within myself to be able to create that safety for her.”
“I was chatting with one mom friend who literally walked me through the entire process of dealing with a baby with a fever,” she said. “I wanted to really highlight how I found strength within myself was also being vulnerable enough to ask for help and to find resources to help me care for myself so I could care for my daughter.”
In a second Instagram upload, Rumer shared photos cuddling her baby girl.
“I am so grateful for the moments that push me and challenge me and show me how much stronger I am than ever I thought I was,” she captioned the sweet images. “Navigating through her fever was hard to watch but we made it through fueled by love, determination, and the proper nutritional and supplement support I’m fortunate to have. It’s a support that is needed by many.”
Rumer and Thomas, 28, announced the birth of their daughter in April, one week after Louetta made her entrance into the world.
“Louetta Isley Thomas Willis ✨ You are pure magic 🌱. Born at home on Tuesday, April 18th. You are more than we ever dreamed of ✨,” Rumer gushed via Instagram at the time alongside a photo of the newborn.
The Empire alum has frequently shared vulnerable moments from her parenthood journey on social media, including the process of embracing her postpartum body. She has also expressed her joy in seeing her dad become a grandfather.
“Papa I’m so lucky to have you and so is Lous,” Rumer wrote in a Father’s Day post in June. “Thank you for being the silliest, most loving, coolest Daddio a girl could ask for.”
