What To Know
- Dylan Dreyer opened up about how her parenting expectations changed after becoming a mom.
- Dreyer also revealed why she isn’t interested in welcoming another child after having her three sons.
- Dreyer launched her new Today podcast, The Parent Chat, last month.
Dylan Dreyer is getting candid about how her ideas of parenthood changed after becoming a mother of three.
Dreyer discussed the ups and downs of parenting with guests on her new Today podcast, The Parent Chat, which launched earlier this month. “Before I became a mom, I imagined dinner with the family every night. All of us sitting together at the table, the napkins on your lap, you have your knife and your fork, and everybody’s just eating this delicious meal that I cooked because we’d never ordered takeout,” she said at the top of the podcast’s Thursday, April 9, episode. “And then, cut to this.”
The episode went on to show a clip of a recent family dinner, during which Dreyer’s sons, Calvin and Oliver, bounced and sang in their seats as they ate takeout food. The camera then panned to her youngest child, Rusty, playing the harmonica as his brothers kept making noise.
“It’s just a typical night at my house,” Dreyer said of the clip. “We did order takeout that night. I do cook a lot, but sometimes, you just have to order some burgers and fries. And I always said I would never let my kids sing at the table, or [let] chaos happen at the table. Now, we’ve got harmonicas. We’ve got dancing. I mean, if that video played on and on, [the] kids are lifting up their shirts, I don’t know to who. To me? I’ve seen that before. Like, what are you showing me at this point? But [it’s] just madness.”
Dreyer noted that it’s “funny” to watch her mother witness the chaos when she visits. “Dinner was so different when I was a kid. It was calm. It was quiet. You ate your meal. You cleaned up after dinner. It’s just so funny, you know?” Dreyer told listeners. “And I just look at it, like, my kids are having so much fun. And if they look back at dinner time as a fun time — I mean, look at the joy, look at the happiness, look at the laughter. Those are the memories that those kids are going to have. And as long as you’re all together, I mean, sometimes you just got to let the rules of dinner time go away.”
Dreyer shares her three sons with her estranged husband, Brian Fichera. Back in July 2025, Dreyer announced via Instagram that she and her ex, who wed in 2012, had quietly separated a few months prior. News broke last month that Dreyer officially filed for divorce from Fichera on March 10.
Later in the podcast episode, Dreyer recalled how people would ask if she was going to try for a girl after welcoming her three boys. “I said, ‘With my luck, I’d have twin boys if I tried for a girl.’ Like, it would just never work,” she stated.
Dreyer also offered another explanation for why she doesn’t want any more children. “I was just so sick of that 1-year-old, 2-year-old phase, because you’re so stuck at home,” she stated. “And it sounds good in theory, like, ‘Oh, you could travel with the kid. Just put them in a carrier, and it’ll be great.’ But it’s like, ‘No. I want to go to Universal or Disneyland. I want to have experiences for the 8-year-old and the 5-year-old, and not always have, like, a baby baby around.”
Dreyer is the latest Today host to have taken a week off from the NBC morning show to enjoy spring break with their family. NBC News’ Emilie Ikeda and Weekend Today‘s Laura Jarrett filled in for Dreyer on the third hour of Today before she was back in Studio 1A on Monday, April 13.
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