Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have four children. Their first daughter and eldest child, Katherine Schwarzenegger, was born in 1989. In his autobiography, Arnold Schwarzenegger recounted feeling overwhelmed with joy after the birth of his first child. He even cried while informing his friends. However, shortly after bringing her back home, “a nanny came into the picture,” and the Hollywood icon failed to participate in the initial care of his firstborn. While the bodybuilding icon realized his mistake too late, he would get another chance.

In his book, the Terminator actor wrote, how learning about gatekeeping made him realize his mistake. So in July 1991, when his second daughter, Christina Schwarzenegger, was born, the seven-time Mr. Olympia was determined to make a change. The “gatekeeping would not happen again,” he wrote.

Arnold Schwarzenegger did it right the second time

The Hollywood action star wrote, “I put my foot down from Day One.” While his busy schedule prevented the actor from being around his younger daughter during the day, he made time at night. Instead of letting the nanny take over, Schwarzenegger cared for his baby. “When Maria finished breastfeeding Christina, I would take the baby from her immediately and put her on my chest,” revealed the father of five.

His daughter would lie “kind of spread-eagled,” on Schwarzenegger’s chest, and the pair would fall asleep. However, in his sleep, Schwarzenegger made sure not to roll over. “Nature had built in that safeguard,” he wrote. The former bodybuilding champion also became a light sleeper and woke up when he heard “the baby making little stirring noises.”

The actor handed over his daughter to her mother whenever that happened, and she would breastfeed the baby again. After she was done, Schwarzenegger took “the baby back for a couple more hours of sleep.” He did this regularly and got involved in helping Shriver take care of the baby.

In Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, Schwarzenegger revealed what he told the women of his house. “I totally failed with the first baby because for every hundred diapers Maria did, I did maybe one. That’s not fair… I want to participate more this time,” he said. After making the change, Schwarzenegger played his part in caring for his two sons and taught them all, some important life lessons. The bodybuilding legend also explained how he found joy in changing his younger daughter’s diapers.

Finding joy in the little things

In his book, Schwarzenegger wrote about not wasting time learning to change diapers. “I started changing them right away,” wrote Schwarzenegger. If fact, within a few weeks, Schwarzenegger got so good at it that no one followed him upstairs to see if he was putting on the diapers correctly.

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Schwarzenegger felt so happy, he said to himself, “This is an enormous breakthrough.” He also felt glad that it calmed his daughter, and she went back to sleep peacefully. While changing diapers may look like a different victory, in comparison to winning seven Mr. Olympia and five Mr. Universe titles, the former champion felt “a great sense of accomplishment and great joy of participating.”

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