Hilary Duff chats about what she’s learned about parenting

From child star to star mom, Hilary Duff has come a long way since her Disney darling days as Lizzie McGuire. Though she’s hard at work on her fifth studio album and guest starring on television shows like Raising Hope, showbiz takes a supporting role to her latest star turn – mom to two-year-old Luca. Hilary shares what she’s learned about parenting so far.

“My experience as a mom has been the most incredible two years, three really including being pregnant. It has taught me so much. Parenting is definitely harder as your child gets older. They start to have an opinion and say ‘no’ 300 times a day, so I’m just trying to figure things out day by day. We (retired NHLer Mike Comrie) and I are very calm parents and Luca is a really mellow kid, but he’ll still have meltdowns or tantrums. If we get worked up while Luca is getting worked up, then there’s no balance, so we try to be strong with him when we need to.

Spending some time away from your child is important, too. In the beginning working on the new album was tough. I felt a lot of guilt and missed my baby when I was away but I also felt weird because sometimes I enjoyed my alone time. When Luca was about 10 months old I started thinking that I could break away a little bit. It’s great because I found myself back in there somewhere buried under my new important role as mom and I thought ‘there I am.’ ”