Stacey Solomon and her partner Joe Swash recently became a family of eight, after welcoming baby girl Belle last month. And since then, the TV presenter has been proudly giving fans a glimpse of life at home, cuddled up on the sofa and enjoying family days out.
Recently, the star – who found fame on The X Factor aged 19 – opened up about being a teen mum, after falling pregnant with her first child at just 17 years old.
Stacey, 33 – who is mum to Zachary, 15, with childhood sweetheart Dean Cox, Leighton, 10, with ex-fiancé Aaron Barnham, Rex, three, Rose, one, and Belle, one month, with husband Joe, as well as step-mum to Joe’s son Harry, 15 – wrote on her Instagram, “I barely remember life before becoming mum. I do remember all of the looks I’d get and the things that people would say when they saw a ‘child raising a child’.”
She sweetly added, “I look at my children now and I’ve never felt so proud. You are all my greatest achievements.”
And now insiders say that welcoming Belle has made her reflect back on her life and feel immensely proud of her motherhood journey, having had Zachary so young.
Our source says, “Stacey loves the fact that she started having children as young as she did, and now gets to enjoy having a big family and seeing them all grow up. Becoming a mum at 17 was terrifying at first, but she took to parenting like a duck to water and knew back then that she was going to have more children. She’s never been put off adding to her brood in the way that she has. She was made to feel ashamed when she got pregnant as a teenager, but it only made her stronger. Once she handled her teen pregnancy, she felt as though she could handle anything – and she has!”
They add, “Stacey wishes she could tell that young girl not to be scared or ashamed – she’s now in her early thirties and has five wonderful children. She can’t quite believe it, and just feels incredibly lucky to be where she is in life.”
Stacey regularly shows off her close bond with eldest son Zachary, last month revealing the teen had been keeping her company during Belle’s night feeds. Stacey often says in jest that Zachary is her favourite child. Last year, while creating Christmas decorations on her TV show, she gushed, “Ah Zach, my favourite child. Just kidding – but he is. Everyone’s got one, don’t pretend that you don’t!”
And now our insider says that Stacey has also made jokes about the possibility of becoming a grandmother before she turns 40.
The source shares, “Zachary will be 21 when she’s 40, and so it’s possible that he could be in a committed relationship and starting a family of his own. It’s obviously years off and just a worry in her imagination, but it’s something she has thought about – she’s joked to pals about not wanting to be called a nan while still in her thirties, but, like everything in life, Stacey knows she would just roll up her sleeves and handle whatever happens.”
Stacey and Joe, 41, have been living in their idyllic £1.2 million Pickle Cottage home for two years, even tying the knot in their countryside garden last summer. The TV star has often spoken about how much she loves her house, revealing in 2021 that the pair had finally found their “forever home.”
But our source says Stacey does worry about things becoming slightly overcrowded in the future.
“Sometimes it can feel a bit of a squash and a squeeze when the kids are running round or have mates over and they feel a bit on top of each other. They’ve spoken about how they’ll cope there as the kids get bigger and whether they might have to move on eventually. But she loves it so much there, and they’ve worked so hard to make it a dream home that she’s vowed she absolutely won’t be moving out any time soon.”