Why Kim Kardashian Cries Herself to Sleep Some Nights

Kim Kardashian enjoys being a parent to four children, despite the challenges she faces every day as a single parent. The Kardashians star, 42, recently admitted to crying herself to sleep some nights after a particularly difficult day. She shares four children with ex-husband Kanye West, daughters North, 9, and Chicago, 5, and sons Saint, 7, and Psalm, 4.

During a stop on the podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty in May, host Jay Shetty asked Kardashian how parenting is different compared to what she thought it would be like before North was born. “Everyone says the days are long and the years are short, and that couldn’t be like a more true statement,” Kardashian said in a preview clip PEOPLE published. “So, like, when you’re in it, I mean, especially when they’re babies and you’re feeding … there’s madness going on. It’s like full madness… It’s the best chaos though.”

The chaos sometimes comes before the sun rises. “You have no idea what’s going on” every morning, Kardashian told Shetty. While one of her daughters wants her to do her hair perfectly, one of her sons needs help putting his shoes on. “It’s like full crazy madness, cooking, running around. Like, it’s wild,” she said.

Kardashian learned “the most about” herself when parenting. “It has been the most challenging thing,” she said. “There are nights I cry myself to sleep. Like, holy s—, this f—ing tornado in my house. Like, what just happened?” She noted that her children face conflicting moods and personalities, and sometimes there is no one there to help them but herself. The reality star has to “play good police officer and bad cop.”

The KKW Beauty mogul admitted she was working on being “a little bit firmer” as a parent, it is “really f—ing hard.” That was the “only way” she could describe it. However, it is still “the most rewarding job in the entire world,” Kardashian said.

“There is nothing that can prepare you… I don’t care how long you wait. I don’t care what you’re waiting for. You are never prepared,” she told Shetty. “But… you will figure it out, and it will make you so proud of yourself that you figured it out and that you got through the day.”

Days are tough at Kardashian’s house, but nights can be just as challenging. It’s “hour by hour” to see if they make it through the night. The house is thrown “completely upside down” if someone has a tantrum. “But it teaches you so much more about yourself than I think anyone, any parent, could have ever anticipated,” Kardashian said. “I mean, there’s nights when you don’t wash your hair for days as a mom and you have spit up all over you and you’re wearing the same pajamas, especially in COVID… It was insane, you know?”

Kardashian previously talked about how difficult it was to co-parent with West in December when she stopped by Angie Martinez’s podcast. She noted how she had the “best memories” of growing up with her father, the late attorney Robert Kardashian, and hoped her children could have the same. “As long as they can have that, that’s what I would want for them,” she told Martinez. “So if they don’t know things that are being said or what’s happening in the world, why would I ever bring that energy to them?” She went on to say that she would have conversations about her split from West when they grow up, but “until then, I’ll do anything to keep their life as normal as possible.”