“I really enjoy the newborn phase, I know that it’s not for everyone, but there’s parts of it that I absolutely really love,” Byrne, 35, admits when WHO catches up with the couple – just three months after welcoming their second little girl, Lola.
“And Marlie is just so obsessed with her sister now and it’s such a beautiful thing to see.”
Despite declaring themselves “fly by the seat of our pants” parents, Byrne admits there’s not much that can prepare you for the sleep deprivation.
“I cannot remember the last time I got a full night sleep – actually, I haven’t had a full night sleep in three months, let’s be real,” she laughs.
That is, unless, like Johnson you manage to get a solid seven hours despite a particularly rough night.
“I could sleep through anything, so it’s always a gamble when I wake up in the morning and ask Laura how the night was,” the 33-year-old jokes.
“Last night was one that I thought, ‘Surely it must have been a pretty good night because I slept so soundly. I feel great.’ And Laura was like, ‘Grrrrr!’”
While that part of parenting might not get easier, the couple admit everything else is much more manageable the second time around.
“I remember even like changing Marlie’s nappy used to scare me so much with a newborn,” Johnson confesses.
Now, the pair have a bit more of the lay of the land and have even teamed up with Huggies to extol the importance of using the right product to other new parents.
“I mean the amount of times that, if you don’t have a good-fitting nappy, you’ll have poo or wee up the back of your car seat or all over an outfit. Like that is absolutely the worst,” Byrne shares, admitting Huggies’ new Ultimate Nappy Pants is a “godsend for parents” with active toddlers like themselves.
“I mean, I’m even pushing to making adult nappy pants,” Johnson jokes. “I think that would make life a bit easier.”
As for wedding plans, they’re certainly still in the works for the couple – although they’re coming along a little more slowly than they had hoped.
“We’ve booked in a venue, we’ve done nothing else because being parents to a newborn has kept us super-busy,” Byrne admits, revealing they will tie the knot at the end of the year.
“We’re closer to the wedding but we’re no closer to having it organised.”
Still, Johnson knows that like most things, it will all come together in the end.
“I think we approach weddings in the same way we approach holidays, we’ll book in the big ticket item like the accommodation or the venue and then everything else will be done at the absolute last minute,” he jokes. “That is us to a tee.”
One thing is for sure though, Marlie-Mae and Lola won’t be getting any more siblings until their parents finally say their I dos.
“No more babies until we get married,” Byrne jokes.
Though surely with babies as cute as theirs, there can be no guarantee!
