Eva Mendes' Daughters Told Her She Turns Into A “Different” Kind Of Mom At Bedtime

Eva Mendes has two different versions of motherhood, according to her daughter. There’s the daytime version and someone else she refers to as “Nighttime Mama,” and she even had some suggestions for the latter.

Mendes is mom to 9-year-old daughter Esmerelda Amada and 7-year-old daughter Amada Lee with partner Ryan Gosling, and she recently sat down with Hoda Kotb on TODAY to discuss what her life at home looks like with her family, including what their life looks like at night.

“I’ll tell you something that my kid told me, like, three years ago,” Mendes shared in the interview. “She’s like, ‘Nighttime Mama’ is kind of, like, different.’” When she asked her daughter to explain, the little girl said, “‘Well, Nighttime Mama, you just have to chill your life down at night.’ I was dying because I was like, ‘I do have to chill my life down at night.’”

The busy mom of two went on to share that her daughters’ bedtime routine usually takes a few hours because “you want to get all the things done and lined up so they’re in bed at that time, so that you can have a life, but also so they can get their hours of sleep.”

Hence the arrival of Nighttime Mama, getting it all done so she can chill her life down.

Mendes’ nightttime routine with her children is so important to her family that she actually wrote a book, Desi, Mami, and the Never-Ending Worries all about trying to calm kids’ brains and help them deal with anxiety. Which can be especially difficult at night as kids wind down. “Desi, Mami and the Never-Ending Worries is a love letter to my kids and yours,” Mendes said in a statement about her new children’s book, which will be released in September. “Learning how to train our brain to work for us and not against us is easier said than done! At my home and in Desi's, we try to deal with the never-ending worries and anxieties that we all have, so those negative thoughts don’t take over and dominate.”

To be fair to Mendes, she does have a lot on her plate and it can be tough to wind down at the end of the day. As she told Kelly Clarkson in 2019, “Nobody told me it was gonna really be a job, and a job that I needed an incredible amount of skill for, in different areas: a chauffeur, a cook, a personal assistant to an abusive boss.”

No wonder Nighttime Mama needs to get things done.