Gabby Barrett Says Daughter Baylah May ‘Changed Our World’

Gabby Barrett and husband Cade Foehner welcomed their first child in January when Barrett gave birth to daughter Baylah May, and the couple has happily settled in to their new life as parents. Barrett had been open about her excitement to become a mom before Baylah May’s arrival, and now that her daughter is here, it’s “even better” than she imagined.

“It’s like everybody says to you, ‘You don’t know until you have kids and your world slips upside down and you’ll see when they get here,’” Barrett told PopCulture.com and other media this month. “And everybody said to Cade, ‘Oh, you’re going to have a girl? She’s going to be wrapped around your finger, just watch,’ and this and that. And literally, yep, that’s exactly everything and more.”

“She’s just changed our world, changed our perspective. I mean, kids just change your life for the better in so many different ways,” the new mom continued. “And so everything I do now I just think of her. Even things that I’ll probably write about in the future will just reflect her and my family. I’m just such a family-oriented person. So she just means the world to me and it’s really nice to start to see her personality come out and just see what she’s like. So it’s been really cool.”

Along with becoming a parent, Barrett has had a number of other accomplishments to celebrate over the past year including notching two consecutive No. 1s for her hit singles “I Hope” and “The Good Ones.” The 21-year-old is getting ready to return to touring with Thomas Rhett on the singer’s The Center Point Road Tour, and shared that she’s “finding the balance” between being a mom and an entertainer.

“My daughter is five months old now and so us just kind of getting into the touring world and music world again, full throttle, it’s been fun finding the balance of everything,” Barrett said. “Motherhood is definitely my top priority out of everything, but it’s helpful to have my husband who also plays beside me, plays guitar, and my daughter. So that means my daughter will be traveling with us and we get to all do this together. So it’s the best dream you can be living for me.”

The American Idol alum has been performing since she was 11 years old and shared that “there really is a gift in taking a break,” which she was able to do while being off the road due to the pandemic.

“The gift was me really getting to spend some quality time with my family and re-figure out where my priorities are in life and what’s most important to me,” she said. “And just getting to spend that time just with them, music aside… Of course, music is absolutely wonderful and a huge part of my life, but my family is first and foremost, and so that was really cool getting to spend that really quality time with them. I think it just reset me and recharged me in all the ways that I needed to be and so it was helpful in a lot of ways.”