Gabby Barrett welcomed her first child, Baylah May, with husband Cade Foehner on January 18, 2021. Now that baby Baylah has turned one year old, Barrett is grateful that she’s had a well-balanced experience between motherhood and being an entertainer, even though it hasn’t always been easy.
The “I Hope” singer chatted with Audacy’s Rob + Holly on the Friday Night Takeover about the task she struggled with the most as a new mom, the advice Carrie Underwood gave her, and how she’s putting her daughter as her number one priority.
“I didn’t know I was going to be terrible at bathing her in the beginning,” Barrett laughed. “[It] was just so funny because right before I went home from the hospital you can tell the nurses and stuff had been doing it for a while… they’ll take ‘em and lift up their legs and wipe ‘em down, put on their clothes really quickly and me and my husband would go over and try to like, put her clothes on and I couldn’t get her arm through the thing [armhole]. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m scared she’s going to break!’”
While she was pregnant, Barrett chatted with fellow American Idol alum Carrie Underwood about motherhood.
“I know I’ve talked to Carrie [Underwood] about a few different things,” Barrett remembered. “When I was pregnant I had asked her just like, how she did certain things and what kind of advice she’d give and stuff like that. It was more like material things that we were talking about, not so much like, ‘how do I balance life of entertaining and motherhood?’ That’s something I had to kind of figure out for myself.”
Barrett has figured out that work-life balance over time, including making her daughter her number one priority.
“She comes with me everywhere that I go,” Barrett said. “I like to be a very hands-on mom. She’s my first priority over music, over anything. She comes on the bus, she normally stays in the bus with the nanny —she has a nanny that watches her — she’ll stay on the bus and I’ll be with her until I have to like, do my makeup or do an interview, or do the show and I come back on and I’m Mom.”
She added, “And thankfully… I have been able to balance things well. That’s not to say there hasn’t been any challenges or anything like that, but Baylah, she’s just so great. She’s very flexible, sleeps on the bud like a doll, sleeps at home, sleeps in hotels, whatever. She’s just great, so I’m thankful that it’s been able to be a well-balanced [experience].”
Barrett recently posted on Instagram a photo of Baylah’s tiny feet inside a pair of Barrett’s shoes, with the caption: “Baylah got ahold of some shoes during a fitting. Startin early like her mama… ✨🥲”
Barrett recently defended her decision to hide her young daughter’s face in photos, saying, “Please respect how we’ve decided to protect our child.”
Additionally, the “Pick Me Up” singer is gearing up to hit the road this summer with Jason Aldean on his Rock n’ Roll Cowboy Tour, which kicks off on July 15 in Scranton, Pennsylvania and will hit 30+ cities before wrapping up in Wichita, Kansas.
