EXCLUSIVE: Simon ‘Wiggle’ Pryce and Lauren Hannaford give us an insight into their family life and how parenthood has changed them

Simon Pryce aka the Red Wiggle and his wife Lauren Hannaford welcomed their first child, Asher William Pryce, in January 2021 and have been loving the wild ride of parenthood ever since.

The happy couple met on a Wiggles tour when Lauren, a former elite gymnast, performed as Wags the Dog, Henry the Octopus and Dorothy the Dinosaur.

The pair wed in 2017 and encountered a challenging fertilty journey with Lauren struggling to conceive initially.

“There were complications, [but] as soon as we got out of our head that it doesn’t look like we can physically fall pregnant at the moment, we fell pregnant,” Simon told Now to Love.

“And you hear that story so many times but that’s literally what happened!”

With their young son, Asher now 18-months-old, Lauren describes their boy as a “busy little boy” and “non-stop’”.

Bounty Parents caught up with Simon and Lauren to chat about parenthood, postnatal fitness and more.

Hi Simon and Lauren, tell us what an average day looks like for your family?

Simon: It varies so much but Asher usually wakes up anytime between 5:30am and 6:30am. So, that’s a fairly early start. We’ve been really lucky that Asher and Lauren have been able to go on tour with me so we’re together most of the time. But, when I’m touring that’s a whole different routine again to what a normal day would be. If I’m in the studio filming I leave the house before he gets up so then I don’t see him then until late in the afternoon or early evening.

We made a decision to try and stay together as much as possible because, in a normal year for me, I’d be on the road about eight months of the year and that’s way too long to be apart.

Lauren: We try to keep in a routine as much as we can when we’re away. We bring familiar toys and we keep sleep and meal times the same. What our day look like looks like or where we are varies quite a bit but we just roll with it and adjust as we go.

S: He always loves to come home but he’s just happy if we’re all together. I think also having a child through COVID, children are used to being with both parents, or whatever their family dynamic set up is, and so I think there’s a lot of attachment going on.

L: Asher and I came home from Melbourne a few days earlier than Si while he was touring. Over the next few days he started to get a bit more whingey become he wanted us all back together. The night Si came back, Asher was so excited. He was so happy, rolling around on the floor and laughing his head off. As soon as we’re back together as a unit, that’s home to him, wherever we are.

Every kid would love a Wiggle as their dad. Simon, does Asher love when you sing and dance for him?

S: I think so. It tends to calm him if he’s a bit upset and I sing him a nursery rhyme. But, it’s hard to really know what his understanding is when he sees me in the show or on television, compared to at home. If we’re reading a book and you say, ‘Where’s Dad?’, he’ll point to me as Simon Wiggle. He loves music. We went on tour to New Zealand when he was eight weeks old and he was in an arena with thousands and thousands of people and so that’s always been his life.

L: We were at a show recently and Asher and I were sitting off to the side. In front of the stage there’s a tape when children aren’t to go over the line. But Asher kept running to the middle front of the stage, in front of that line with his arms in the air, going ‘Dad, Dad!’.

S: He doesn’t understand why during the show he can’t come on stage but he can during soundchecks.

Lachy ‘Wiggle’ is also a dad to twin girls. Have Asher, Lulu and Lottie formed a Wiggly kids’club?

S: They have hung out a few times. They’re based in Melbourne so when we were there they played a little but they mostly just sizing each other up. The general manager of The Wiggles has a little girl who is about 15 months old, so we definitely have a Wiggly crèche happening now.

Do you and Lachy share advice and fatherly wisdom with each other?

S: Definitely. It’s been helpful because his girls are a little older than Asher, so I will say, ‘Mate, Asher’s doing this, did you experience that?’ I can bounce things off Lachy which has been great. He is loving being a dad. I can’t even imagine how you deal with twins! Asher runs rings around us, let alone trying to do it with two. But he’s loving it and they’re a beautiful family. I definitely ask Lachy for advice every now and then.

How has parenthood changed you both?

S: I’ve always been quite an emotional person but now I’m incredibly emotional. We meet a lot of children who aren’t that well and that really hits home now. It always affected me with this job, but now it has a whole different meaning and understanding of what you’d be going through as a parent if you had a child who wasn’t that well and you’re dealing with all that. You look at your own mortality more too. I turned 50 recently and was like, ‘Okay, now I’ve got to be healthy forever’. I never really thought of that much before but you just want to make sure that you look after this little person and give them the best life possible, for as long as possible.

L: I feel like I can’t even imagine what life was like before Asher.

Lauren, thank you for being a guest judge for the 2022 Bounty Baby Awards. Tell us about when you were shopping for baby gear, how did you decide what to buy?

L: We did a lot a lot of Googling and we visited quite a few baby stores to see what was there and we asked friends what to get. My sister-in-law sent us a list of stuff and it was overwhelming. It’s incredible the amount of stuff that is out there and you think, well, is one better than the other or are they all good and which one do you choose?

S: In the end it became more about recommendations. We were test driving different prams, when a friend said, I’ve tried a couple of different brands, get this one.

Lauren, tell me about your pregnancy and postnatal fitness program, FHIT-natal?

L: I’ve got my original program, FHIT which I’ve done for years but I had so many mums writing to me wanting a pregnancy or a postnatal but it wasn’t something I felt I could do having not experienced it myself. As soon as we knew I was pregnant, I thought now I can write a program that’s suitable. About two days after Asher was born, I was sitting in the hospital room, feeding him and editing by pregnancy workout. Not long after that, I started to think about what the postnatal program would look like and speaking to my physio to make sure it was safe. I consulted with her to get the timing right to then film those workouts.

It’s been wonderful to see how much FHIT-natal has helped women during their pregnancy and to get their fitness back again, post pregnancy. I say it’s not about exercising again and getting back into training, it’s about getting moving again after giving birth.

The feedback that sticks out the most is from all the people who say how they feel comfortable and not pressured during the process and being able to ease into it and find their fitness again.

The workouts are 15 to 20 minutes each and so you’ve got time to squeeze it during their baby’s sleep. I wanted to make it simple. There’s no need for any equipment, you can get straight into it and get it done.

Simon, The Wiggles have had a massive year. The group topped the Triple J Hottest 100 and they made the cover of Rolling Stone…

S: It has been crazy. Never in your wildest dreams would we have predicted what was going to happen with the Hottest 100. There’s a real nostalgia for The Wiggles. From the original Wiggles to my generation of Wiggles, there is a kind of real love and, at some point, it becomes very daggy when you grow out of it and then it becomes this weird kind of cool again.

From day one, The Wiggles has been about the development of early childhood through entertainment and education. It is based off the back of good music, which hopefully parents don’t mind listening to as well. Even though there has been cast changes over the years, that foundation still exists.

Sometimes adults find it harder to deal with change, than children. If children sit in front of a television or listen to music and they like it, that’s what we’re trying to achieve.

It has been amazing to see this evolution over the past couple of years with Emma leaving and the Fruit Salad Wiggles with its expanded line-up and Tsehay coming in and how the audience have embraced it. The Wiggles have been around for 31 years now and we’re really fortunate, but it does come back down to the core of what the Wiggles is and that remains.