EastEnders star Ricky Champ has introduced baby River and spoke of his baby's chaotic arrival into the world.
Ricky, who plays Stuart Highway on the BBC soap, has welcomed his second child with wife Samantha.
Unlike his character, he is not struggling to come to terms with being a dad as he opened up about being hands-on after the boy's dramatic birth.
Adorable River arrived two weeks earlier than planned on 23 June, weighing 7lb 3oz.
Samantha had been booked for a C-section at 39 weeks, following advice from her doctors - but a fortnight before she was due to go in for the procedure, her waters broke at 3am.
The stressful situation that was made worse when daughter Beatrix was taken ill, and they were forced to leave her with Ricky’s mum.
They headed to the hospital and baby River arrived - and their new son will be very glad mum and dad toned down their love of very strange names!
Ricky told OK! : "It was on our list, but River just felt right. We didn’t go through a book of baby names – we’ve always prided ourselves on our naming skills.
"I mean, we have two cats called Bruce Willis and Patricia Mayonnaise… that says it all really.
"We told Beatrix about the name River and she started calling him that to Sammy’s tummy when she was pregnant, so we were kind of locked in. But we love it – it’s cool and a bit hippie."
Samantha said: "We had a list of names we both liked, but River was always at the top.
"I love the Joni Mitchell song River so that was where the idea came from. And his middle name is Leo, which is Ricky’s mother’s maiden name."
Ricky went on: "It was overwhelming. There was so much anticipation and a four-year-old is naturally very impatient.
"We told Bea about him at 16 weeks and then she asked every day when he was going to be here. As soon as she met him, she said straightaway, “Can I have a cuddle?”
Asked about how he was enjoying the dirty jobs again, he said: "I’m brilliant at it!
"I do the dry work, the wet work, the burp work. Sammy’s expressing, so that means we can divvy up the feeds and we can store it in the fridge, so we just have to heat it up. So that makes potentially more time for sleep."
Samantha added: "He’s an amazing dad. The first two days after the C-section, I stayed upstairs and in bed so I didn’t have to go up and down the stairs with my stitches and he took care of everything.
"He was bringing me all my meals in bed, changing River and looking after Beatrix, all on sleepless nights. He’s done a brilliant job."
Read the full interview in OK! Magazine here.
