Helen Skelton has opened up about life as a working mum, admitting she sometimes feels guilty about working instead of spending time with her kids.
The Countryfile presenter, 38, has had a busy few weeks, returning to our tellies for Channel 5 's Summer on the Farm and landing her "dream role" as an ambassador for outdoor clothing brand North Ridge.
Helen shares three children with her estranged husband Richie Myler — Ernie, seven, Louis, five, and Elsie, five months — and said life with three kids can be crazy.
Richie, 32, left the family home back in April, just four months after Helen gave birth to their third child together. He has since been involved with Sophie Thirkill.
Helen said she feels lucky to be able to spend so much time with her children due to the nature of her work and praised her mum for helping with childcare.
"My work is unpredictable, it can be five days one week, then random days the next," she told Hello! magazine.
"I don't want to commit to childcare as if I'm off I want to be with the kids, so my mum comes to stay when I'm working."
She said it takes a village to raise a family and finds it important to surround herself with people who are in the same boat.
Helen also said the "mum guilt" can be suffocating if people don't have the right support network.
She added: "Sometimes I am a full-time mum with the guilt of thinking I should be out working, and other times I am a working mum with the guilt that I'm not at home with them."
She also said: "Life is a bit crazy with three children and I'm not going to lie, getting the kids to school is just chaos."
Helen said she is trying to make the most of "all of the cuddles" as her children grow up, after Ernie asked if he could kiss her at the school gate instead of the school door.
During the school holidays, she is planning to spend time with her kids in Cumbria, where she grew up on a farm and said she has plenty of outdoor activities planned.
Helen is now a ambassador for North Ridge and was ecstatic when they asked her to partner with them.
She said she loves to wear clothes that can get you from a fell walk to a coffee with friends, making the brand partnership her "dream role".
North Ridge clothing and footwear is sold exclusively at GO Outdoors, Blacks and Millets.
