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Christina Ricci gets that it’s not always about age. The Penelope star, 42, opened up about her kids, revealing that her nine month old infant Cleopatra is able to sleep alone in a crib, but her eight year old son Freddie still isn’t quite there yet. “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,” the actress told PEOPLE magazine on September 26, joking that it’s a “f***ing miracle” that her baby is sleep trained.
The Sleepy Hollow beauty then launched into the individualities of her two kiddos, saying that when she attempted the same sleep training with Freddie, he “screamed himself hoarse and started banging his head against the crib railing,” so she had to pull back. “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. It was like she was ready and she wanted to do it, and it was right for her.”
Christina, who became a cult darling with dark films like Prozac Nation and Addams Family Values and grew into a household name, first became a mother when she gave birth to Freddie with ex-husband James Heerdegen in August 2014. She filed for divorce from James in July 2020, and later became pregnant with little Cleopatra. Christina married hair stylist Mark Hampton in October of 2021 ahead of the birth of their daughter on December 8.
So far, it appears her two babies are getting along famously, and the Yellowjackets actress admits she pays Freddie to play with her daughter “for 20 minutes at a time in her little playpen,” and says that “he is really helpful” with Cleo. “He can help me make a bottle. He can help me in the bathtub with her. It is really great,” she told the magazine. “There hasn’t been a lot of sibling jealousy or anything. That has been a huge relief.”