Beautiful truth-teller! Three months after giving birth to son Milan, Shakira admits that motherhood has been a big adjustment. The 36-year-old "Beautiful Liar" singer chatted with Us Weekly at the NBC Summer Press Day in Pasadena, Calif., on Monday, Apr. 22, about how she's coping with being a new mom.
"I didn't expect babies to need so many diapers! Nobody told me they needed to be changed so often!" The Voice judge joked. "I mean he's a great, great baby. He's an easy one, I think. But nobody told me it would be this hard. It takes a lot of energy from you. But I love it, I'm really enjoying every bit of it. It's just that it's not as idyllic as everybody tells you, but also not as horrible as everyone tells you."
Shakira, who welcomed baby Milan with boyfriend Gerard Pique in January, admitted that she worries about getting her body back and feeling like her old self again.
"I mean, I guess our mothers and grandmothers weren't under the pressure that women of today are after delivering a baby. My dad says that there's nothing better than a little meat on the bone! He likes my mom a little chubby. So she was never under the pressure to get back to her old weight, and she never did, actually!" the Colombian singer quipped. "But it's different, I have a career, and that's the only part that's been a bit stressful because I knew that I'd have to come back here to do The Voice two months after I delivered a baby. I didn't have my four months maternity like every woman on earth has. So I'm not trying to complain, but it's been a process full of challenges in my life."
The first-time mom says she's doing Zumba to help her lose the baby weight. "I'm still a few pounds over!" she said. "Zumba has been pretty great for me even during pregnancy. I did it almost until the end."
In order to balance motherhood and work, Shakira says she relies heavily on Pique, 26. "Thank God the father is very involved. He has been amazing," she said. "The baby spends as much time with me as he does with his dad. He's the kind of dad who's full hands on. He changes diapers, he bathes him, he enjoys playing with the baby, he enjoys feeding him, all of that stuff. So that's great help for me, you know. I can't imagine doing all of this and not having the father do his part of the job. So that's a huge help to me."
But Shakira knows how to cheer her son up. "I play him music and he stops crying!" she said. "So apparently he's going to like music!"