Danielle: “I’m more nervous about Archie starting senior school than he is!”
Mum of four boys Danielle Lloyd talks us through a typical weekday in her busy home
Danielle Lloyd, 37, is an old hand at getting her boys ready for the start of a new school year, but this September will be different as her eldest, Archie, is starting secondary school.
She tells Closer, “He’s not fazed by it, but I’m terrified!
He’s confident because there are friends of his from primary school and his football team going too, but he’ll be moving from a school of 100 children, to one with 1,000. Me and Michael [O’Neill, Danielle’s husband] have been talking to him about what our first days at senior school were like and what to expect.”
Aside from that, Danielle – who is expecting a baby girl in November – is looking forward to the new term. “The boys all love going to school, so I’m lucky. And this will be the first year I’ve been really prepared – I’ve already bought their uniforms and shoes,” she says. The star, 37, says that her sons, Archie, 11, Harry, 10, and George, seven, whom she shares with ex Jamie O’Hara, as well as Ronnie, three, her son with Michael, get themselves up and ready each morning.
SET ROUTINE
She says, “I’ve taught them from a young age to get themselves ready so they come down dressed. They can make cereal but I have to help most of them prepare their breakfast. They know how to make their beds, so they do that, too. I’ve always made sure their routine is set, otherwise the house would be mayhem.”
But Danielle admits that things don’t always go to plan.
“Some mornings I’m screaming at them at the door to hurry up, but since the lockdowns I’ve been really on the ball because they’ve had enough to deal with so I want to make it really stress-free,” she says. “Their school bags are always in a certain place, and we have a box for shoes in the hallway. Though some mornings they still can’t find one of their shoes!”
While the boys are at school and nursery, Danielle focuses on her business projects, including her natural skincare range, travel work and other media commitments. Drop-offs and pick-ups are shared between her and Michael, with both schools and Ronnie’s nursery – which he goes to five days a week – within a few minutes from each other. After school, the boys shower, get changed and relax or play in the garden.
Homework is her most hated task, so she likes to get it over with.
“Making kids do homework is one of the hardest things”, she confesses. “I sit them in the kitchen and we all do it together, but you can imagine how noisy it is with them all asking for help! I say, ‘If you get your homework done, you can go on your computer games for an hour’. That does the trick.”
And Danielle admits she found homeschooling hard. “I really struggled because I’m dyslexic, so when they’d ask me how to spell things, I’d say, ‘Ask SIRI’,” she laughs. “During the pandemic, Harry was diagnosed with ADHD, and he’s dyslexic too, which made things even tougher. It was a struggle trying to teach three kids, but it’s hard for Harry to concentrate, so eventually the school let him go back in when we asked, which was great.”
CALM NATURE
She adds, “They’re in their rooms watching TV by 7pm, and on a school night, the latest they can have it on until is 8.30pm.”
Meanwhile, Danielle washes their uniforms but makes their lunches in the morning. “I’m up pretty early with the dog, so I have my coffee, feed everyone, then make the sandwiches,” she says.
The key to such a smooth-running ship seems to be Danielle’s calm nature. She says, “I’m quite a chilled person, although it’s going to be mental when we add a baby to the mix!”
But she has a secret weapon – Michael’s mum, who lives nearby.
“She was our rock when I had Ronnie,” she says. “And the boys are excited. They can’t wait to have a little sister, even Ronnie is saying he’s going to snuggle her.
But we’ll see. They said they were going to look after the dog, and that didn’t happen!”