Brian Dowling has returned to the airwaves following the birth of his second daughter this summer, admitting he was “a little teary” as he left for the studio as he adjusts to his “new normal with two girls”.
The presenter and his husband, Dancing with the Stars judge Arthur Gourounlian welcomed their daughter Blu Amar Rose in late June.
“We were struggling with the name if I’m honest, we had Blu Valentina and then Valentina had changed. Valentina could have been her first name but then I thought people might abbreviate to Val and I thought, she’s too young for that,” he told his co-host Suzanne Kane on 98FM this morning.
“She’s not a Val, so it was Blu Amar, which is Armenian for Summer. Arthur came in with the Summer, with Amar and I like Blake, Blu. My ego, Brian, all B’s. Arthur gets DNA, I get names. I gotta get something, I gotta get a look in.”
The couple tied the knot in 2015 and welcomed daughter Blake in September 2022, followed by Blu in June, with Brian’s sister Aoife acting as their surrogate for both pregnancies
On adjusting to life with two children, Dowling told 98FM listeners that it can feel as if he has “five children” some days.
“Everyone that has more than two, you’ve said it, Pippa (O’Connor) said it, and then there’s my sister, I’m one of seven. But the jump from, because when you have one, you can still do your thing. Pass the baby over, when the baby sleeps, you can do loads, when you have two, you’re passing back and forth, it’s like tag with the kids,” he said.
“You can’t do anything. Obviously with Blake, she got a little clingy because she’s like ‘hang on a second who is this, what is this thing?’ She now says to me, ‘Put her there’, like put her down. Blake likes to pull Blu’s hair, she likes to slap her face, fingers in the mouth. She does say the word ‘hair’, in a British accent.”
He admitted it has been “full on” and he was “in my pyjamas for the first three or four weeks”.