Hilaria Baldwin

It’s not just the title of her book: Hilaria Baldwin’s life mantra is to “live each day clearly”—a task that is easier said than done with a busy career running her yoga studio, Yoga Vida, three kids (Carmen, 4, Rafael, 3, and Leo, 14 months) at home and her hubby, Alec Baldwin, to tend to. “Everything is just survival every single day,” she laughs. “Once the kids are bathed and sleeping, I feel like I’ve won a giant trophy.”

Despite the chaos, Hilaria wouldn’t change a thing about her day-to-day. “The madness is temporary, and I try to revel in the beauty of that,” she says. “If you talk to older people, a lot of them regret that they didn’t have enough kids and that they didn’t spend enough time with them. I’m doing both by having a million children and spending a ton of time with them. Plus, I know it won’t be long before they’re like, ‘Mom, can you drop me off three blocks away?’ That’s going to break my heart.”

Now, with her fourth baby due to arrive this spring, she’s feeling good but also doing her best to keep up. “By the fourth time around, sometimes I forget that I’m pregnant. I take my prenatal vitamins every day, but I don’t really have the luxury to be tired—it’s go, go go,” she says. “Still, Carmen tells me I’m going to have another one after this one. We’ll see about that!”

On her book, The Living Clearly Method. “It’s based off of five principles—perspective, breathing, balance, grounding and letting go. I developed those through my own struggle with eating disorders and trying to figure out a way to take care of myself better. We all struggle with different things, but how we deal with it is very similar—sometimes it’s eating too much or too little, drinking too much, dating the wrong people, having the wrong job, etc. You could spend a ton of money to talk to a therapist, but you will probably revert to the same behavior because animal instincts take over. The Living Clearly Method is designed to help people break the pattern of self-abuse and live a healthier life. For me, it worked.”

On her perfect day in New York. “I’m taking a break from running right now, but usually, I run along the West Side Highway and end up at Physique 57 to take a barre class. I’m obsessed with it. My husband and I also love to go out to eat at either Japonica or Souen or Baker and Co. And we go to the playground a lot.”

On a parenting hack she swears by. “I’ve gotten really great at making three separate meals in one skillet. This is my genius moment since everybody always wants something different for dinner. For example, Raf is going through a phase where one of the only things he’ll eat is tofu, and, since it takes longer to cook, I start with that. Carmen and Leo often eat something similar, but sometimes Carmen decides she wants something else while I’m cooking the other thing. Usually, I end up making the tofu, an egg omelette with lots of veggies in it, and reheating some pasta, all in the same pan. The secret is that you have to be clever about what sticks the most and save that for last, so it doesn’t get all over the other person’s food.”

On how she and hubby Alec Baldwin squeeze in date night. “It’s part of having kids with somebody who’s older: Alec was very clear that he wanted kids right away and also that, at night, ‘You’re not my wife, you’re not the mother of my children. You’re my girlfriend.’ So, once the kids are sleeping, we spend our time together. Sometimes we’ll go out, other times we’ll stay in. Today, I went to the market, so we’re going to cook and hopefully be in bed by 8 p.m. The dream. We’ve definitely reached the point where that is the most exciting night in the world.”