The 'Bachelor' couple tells ET when they plan to expand their family, and takes us inside son Samuel's stunning nursery.
It’s been four years since Sean Lowe and Catherine Giudici (now Giudici-Lowe!) fell in love on The Bachelor. In July, they became parents to their first child, son Samuel. ET caught up with the couple about designing their baby boy’s beautiful nursery, finding time for each other and how their family will grow from here!
You designed Samuel’s nursery with Tori Swaim. What was the best part about working on it?
CATHERINE: Tori is such a passionate person about what she does and that made it really fun. … She wanted the nursery to be exactly what we wanted it to be, and that’s a great partner. … Every time we’re in there, it makes us feel really happy! … I created the wallpaper specifically for the nursery and with the baby in mind. I have a stationery company and it’s mostly irreverent, witty, sweet messages, and I just translated that concept into wallpaper. So we have, ‘mommy you’re the breast,’ and ‘nip, suck,’ and ‘from womb service to bottle service.’ Just sweet little things that remind me of when he was in my belly, and a very personal touch.
What pieces in Samuel’s nursery mean the most to you?
CATHERINE: The chair was a huge necessity for me, so when I was looking on Wayfair to find what functional pieces I needed for sure, the chair gave a lot of excitement … I was thinking about holding the baby, rocking him to sleep, feeding him and playing with him and reading books. It has the most emotional attachment because of the nature of what you’re doing in that chair. I wanted the glide feature and the rocking feature and wanted it to fit in the room, and it’s perfect.
SEAN: We have three little pieces of memorabilia from my childhood … so, that’s kind of cool. I’m a little biased but I think he looks like me and I want him to be my mini-me!
The nursery features so many cute animal items, why that touch?
CATHERINE: Because we didn’t know the gender, that’s where the animals came in. … As much as we’re not ‘blue is for boys and pink is for girls’ … the neutral colors with textures and depth was super, super important to me, and animals are just fun! And a lot of people, if you don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, tend to give you animals. So it’s kind of a safari in there, which would be a cool next nursery idea!
Does that mean baby No. 2 is on the way?
CATHERINE: We want them to be close together. I’m not pregnant or anything, but it’s definitely important that we knock it out! My sisters and I are really close in age, and that’s something that I loved … experiencing a lot of the same things. So we’re hoping that the next one just gets to be best friends with Samuel. … [I’ll probably get pregnant] early next year, in the next 6 to 8 months.
SEAN: 2017 or 2018 is a fair bet we’ll have another kid come along!
Would you want a boy or a girl next?
CATHERINE: I definitely want a little girl -- it’s hard to say if I want her next. I know that I want at least three natural babies and then we’re going to adopt a couple. I’m just worried about having a girl because I know Sean Lowe is going to spoil the crap out of her, and that scares me! .. Having a boy next would be really good just for that competition aspect of boys and getting along. Yes, I would like a mini-me, for sure, a girl ... I see me in Samuel, but he’s 90 percent Sean Lowe. He’s a white boy, blonde, blue eyes, tall, even the pediatrician says he’s a white boy!
Have you seen new sides of each other since becoming parents?
SEAN: I see a different side of Catherine. I don’t think either one of us knew how she would embrace motherhood, but I can’t imagine anyone being a better mom! … Catherine and I have this unique ability where we can be around each other all day long and we never get tired of each other. We both work from home, so we’re always together but we never get sick of each other, which I hear is pretty rare. We’ve kind of always had this intense love. It’s probably grown even stronger because I’ve seen this other side of her.
You just marked four years together! How did you celebrate the anniversary?
CATHERINE: We spend so much time together, that it was like -- hey, do you want to go to sushi next week? … We’re super chill. We’re so blessed that we get to be together all the time. … We are such homebodies and are obsessed with the life that we’ve created for ourselves, so getting a date night isn’t the biggest priority for us because we spend 24 hours a day together!
SEAN: It’s kind of surreal -- every once in awhile we have to stop and ask each other, ‘Did we really meet on a reality TV show?’ because it sounds so ridiculous! … We were just young and in love, but we didn’t know a lot about each other.. We just knew we loved each other, and we’ve learned so much over the course of the past four years.
What have you learned about balancing parenting with your relationship?
CATHERINE: What’s important to us is that we don’t succumb to Samuel’s schedule. We just take him to what we would normally do. So, we continue our relationship as well as just being normal adults. Getting Samuel to see the things we do makes him a well-rounded baby and makes him not as fussy, at least from our experience. We’ve thrown him into all these different things and he doesn’t complain because he’s curious about it. He’s flown eight times and he’s done amazingly, and I think that’s because he’s not sheltered. He goes everywhere with us!
Sean, you posted on Instagram that you take Samuel ‘mall-walking’ once a week to give Catherine solo time. Why is that important to you?
SEAN: Catherine has it so much harder than I do. As a mom, choosing to breastfeed, she just has to bear a lot of the responsibility that I physically can’t. She always does it without ever complaining, and then at the same time she’s trying to run her business! It’s not much taking him for a couple hours in the grand scheme of things, but at least I’m helping her a little bit and giving her a little free time.
Four months into being parents, what’s the biggest thing you’ve learned?
CATHERINE: I’m not an expert at all, but my biggest tip to anything is always be present, because these moments change very quickly. … It’s crazy, but I like to just sit and stare at him and smile with him ... This is a very special, precious time that you don’t get back. Be present with the situation, know that times are going to be challenging, but this is such a huge blessing and just be grateful. So many women go through infertility. This gift is sometimes really hard! Crying is incessant and you haven’t eaten, you haven’t slept, but just to remember how big of a blessing this child is really brings you back to reality.
Sean, you co-hosted ‘After Paradise’ and announced Nick Viall as the new Bachelor. What do you think his season will be like?
SEAN: I’ve been around Nick quite a bit and I really like the guy. … I think a lot of people are going to start to come around this season and root for him. … If I know Nick, I know he’ll probably bring some drama along too. Obviously the show breeds drama, but he seems to always be in the center of it, so, extra drama this season!