The One Show host Alex Jones is one busy lady right now!
Along with presenting the popular evening talk show, the mum-of-two is pregnant with her third baby and is over the moon to be expecting a girl with her husband Charlie Thomson.
The couple are parents to Teddy, four, and Kit, two, and this pregnancy completely took the family by surprise.
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WATCH: Alex Jones reveals she's expecting a third child!
Alex, 44, exclusively tells HELLO! in our new interview that her daughter is due to arrive in late August and reveals her maternity leave plans from The One Show, plus who will be filling her shoes. The Welsh star is also busy house hunting!
Alex spoke to us in conjunction with her role in the Cadbury Cocoa Life Sofa Sessions and made us giggle when she revealed her worry over checking the gender of her baby. "I do have this paranoia that have they actually checked properly?" she tells us.
Read our full Alex Jones interview below…
Alex with husband Charlie
Hi Alex, congratulations on your pregnancy! How are you feeling about baby number three?
"Actually I'm feeling better this pregnancy, I think, than the other two, even though they were good pregnancies – so far so good. I don't know whether I've just got less time to think about it maybe?
"We're really excited. It was a huge surprise and the very best type of surprise. We didn't see it coming and we're just embracing it and kind of bracing ourselves at the same time for what it will mean to have four… Four?! My brain's gone!"
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Would you like four children?!
"No, this is it. Even the grandparents went, 'Oh my gosh, we're really excited but this is it then isn't it? This is it.' [laughs] Have you always wanted three children?
"It's that classic thing of, we met a little bit later than I bargained for than when I was in my early twenties. I just thought I've been really lucky to have two healthy boys - fantastic, that's our unit.
"And I suppose I always thought, had we started sooner, three would have been lovely. But I never thought it was going to be an option for us. So yeah, it's really special."
Alex shares snaps of her outfits on her Instagram page
And you're having a little girl!
"And a little girl! I hate to say it, but that has just been the icing on the cake. I do have this paranoia that have they actually checked properly?
"I keep asking when I go for these scans, 'Can you just check that it is a girl?' and they're like 'Yes, there's no penis,' and I'm, 'Ok.' But a tiny part of me is, 'What if I've told everyone it's a girl, and it's a boy!"
How's Charlie feeling about having a girl?
"Oh delighted. I mean, neither of us said anything of the sort, we were like, 'Oh, it'll probably be three boys,' and you know, 'That will be nice'.
When we opened the email and it told us what sex the baby was - oh my god, we were ecstatic, 'Oh how lovely to have a little change'."
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Are Teddy and Kit looking forward to having a baby sister?
"Yeah, they are. Well, I don't know if Kit really knows what's going on, but yeah, they talk about their baby sister a little bit more now. I haven't pushed the issue because they had each other and they were so close during the pandemic, I think they really bonded.
"Ted, even at four, was a bit worried that a third would change the dynamic, so I've treaded really carefully with that one and let him talk to me when he's ready. So when he brings it up we have a chat.
"But the [baby] names are horrendous! [one idea is] 'Skye'. I was like ok, that's not a terrible idea but it's obviously Skye from Paw Patrol!"
Alex at a gala dinner in London in 2018
When will you be going on maternity leave from The One Show?
"The show breaks for three weeks in the summer every year and that break will be in August this year, so I'll go off on that and I'll probably stay off. That's the plan."
Can you tell us who's going to fill in for you on the show?
"It's a funny one isn't it because we've just announced that Jermaine and Ronan are on board now and it's lovely.
"It's so nice to have them and we've all got children the same age and we're getting to know each other slowly. It just feels really nice. So because there's three of us, I think the idea is that they might do it together sometimes.
"Obviously during the pandemic we've had lots of people presenting with me, like Rylan and Michael Ball and Alex Scott has done some. I think it will just be a mix of all those people who are quite familiar to our audience. I think that's the plan."
Have you created a girly nursery in your house?
"No. I mean, I wasn't even half that organised the first time. At least the first time we had a room with a cot in it pretty early on. You go through the process, they're in your room for ages.
"Now that one of our bedrooms like every else's has been taken up as an office, we're a little bit tight on space here. We're still figuring that out really, where everyone's going to sleep!"
We saw you're house hunting – have you found somewhere to move to?
"I love house hunting anyway, and if it would be recognised as a hobby… but of course it's not because you can't just go to people's houses.
"But we have started and we've had that whole conversation like lots of people in our position – is now the time to move out of London? Do we need a bigger garden? What if this happens again? Because our garden's like a postage stamp – and now that it's got a trampoline in it you literally can't move.
"We went through all of that and we've looked in different areas, and yeah it's all quite exciting what the next chapter will bring, but no firm decisions as of yet."
How do you grab a bit of me-time?
"There isn't much time for that at the minute, and that's ok. I've kind of resigned myself to thinking, well you know, we're in it, there's another baby, this is how it's going to be for a few years.
"I'm really lucky in many ways. I love my job. Work for me doesn't feel like a pain; I go in and my friends are there, the girls in makeup and Tess who's my stylist and we have a good chat. So I feel like even though it's not social, it feels it.
"Obviously I miss my friends massively who are in Cardiff and in West Wales – my best friends, who are still my school friends and uni friends. I think I'll see them next weekend when we got to Pembrokeshire."
Are you going to have a baby shower?
"Oh god, I don't know. We'll do something, but I'm quite low key like that. Just a lunch with close friends – lovely."
Alex is working with Cadbury to raise awareness of sustainable life choices
Tell us about the Cadbury Cocoa Life Sofa Sessions campaign
"I feel really privileged to be leading the Cadbury Cocoa Life Sofa Sessions this month. The idea in a nutshell is to help us all understand what small changes we can make in our everyday life to have a positive impact on the planet – because it shows.
"They've done loads of research and 49 per cent of us want to try and make some positive changes now that we're coming out of the pandemic. The same research also suggests – and I'm definitely in this camp – that because of social media and the media in general and advertising, we're all a bit confused as to what changes we can actually make that will have an impact.
"The point of these sofa sessions was to speak to three experts who worked together on this Cadbury project. They are big green crusaders who can really help us understand what we can do. So we all did the things… turning the lights off, taking the bags for life to the supermarket, washing machine down to 30 – but you wonder, gosh is it enough? What else can we be doing?
"What I learnt is that there's a new generation of ideas now that we can incorporate.
"I spoke to a guy called Laurie who heads Care International and his job is to look after the communities who make the products for Cadburys. He makes sure that the children have an education, the women feel empowered to work, that the cocoa farmers are fairly paid.
He was saying that the biggest thing you can do is take time when you're in the supermarket to really understand where the products you're buying come from. Are they fairly made? Are they sustainable?
"I didn't realise that on Cadbury bars, for the last nine years they've had this green leaf logo. I've often bought a bar of Cadburys – I mean that's our downfall of an evening, chocolate with the telly – and not realised what that logo meant.
"You're helping all these people I've just mentioned by buying that bar because it's 100 per cent sustainably produced cocoa."
Is chocolate one of your cravings at the moment?
"Well let's be honest, I could call it a craving and get away with it but that is just what we do. It's that thing isn't it: you have supper, watch a bit of Netflix and you eat more than you bargained for.
"We've done the same with cleaning products – I buy what my mum and dad used to buy. I don't know why, I think everyone does it... that's a good brand, I'll have that!
"My husband Charlie, who's really into the environment and gets really upset by environmental issues, he's said we should be looking at eco brands - we should be doing refills, so we've sorted incorporated all of that. Simple stuff again, but for us, it's trying to educate the children."
Do you get the children involved in eco-friendly activities?
"Yeah, we really do. We spend a lot of time and it is a bit of a faff but we go to those refill shops with the containers.
"During the pandemic, it became kind of a little thing to do. They don't fully understand but they know, 'Oh, we don't want to have plastic and not too much packaging, so we take our boxes."
Alex Jones is working with Cadbury Cocoa Life and leading the Cadbury Sofa Sessions uncovering what simple sustainable actions people can take every day to reduce their impact on the planet.
Try these six underrated actions which Brits can do to 'power up' their sustainable lifestyle:
- Buy sustainably sourced chocolate
- Put up a no junk mail sign on your letterbox
- Use sustainable sanitary products
- Green banking
- Look out for Fair Wear list of suppliers
- Purchase denim from a brand which offers to repair to extend the life
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