Declan Donnelly 'only lasted a week' doing dry January in relatable parenting confession about 'feral' children

Declan Donnelly has admitted his New Year's resolutions have already come to a crashing halt while getting candid about life as a parent.

Talking on his podcast, Belta Box, which he hosts with his I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here partner Ant McPartlin, he confessed: "I've got to get fit and healthy in 26, hey, it nearly happened. Well, I was doing dry January. The clue to how it's going was I was doing it. I lasted a week."

Explaining how his plans were derailed, Dec continued: "I had a very stressful day with the kids. Very stressful day. They've been feral since.

© Shutterstock

"Since New Year, and they went back to school for that first week of back at school, and I thought, oh, it's good a bit of discipline and a bit of routine is back in their lives, It's going to be lovely.

"They were feral all week and then the weekend was a disaster. So I was going to do dry January, in the end, Saturday night, put them to bed and opened up all the wine."

Ant, 50, had jokingly said: "Wow, well, well, well done. I'm proud of you. As someone who's been sober nearly eight years, I'm very proud of you. I'm proud of your eight days."

Dec shares two children with his wife, Ali Astall; daughter Isla, seven, and son Jack, three. 

Dec's low-key family life

Dec and his family have lived in their £7 million Chiswick family home for 20 years. Speaking to The Sunday Times about the area, the Britain's Got Talent presenter revealed he believes his neighbours are "too posh". 

"We don't get mobbed in Chiswick. People are far too posh to let on that they know who we are. We are blessed to have some very nice friends, and we're part of a gang, and they never treat us like, 'Oooo, wow they're famous'."

© Instagram

Before becoming a father, Dec told The Sun: "I built the house to eventually have a family in. Two would be good. That's still my intention, but who knows when it'll be." And it looks like his dreams have come true! 

Opening up about fatherhood, Dec wrote in the TV duo's book, Once Upon a Tyne: "Becoming a dad has completely transformed me. 

"At first, like all expectant parents, I didn't truly understand how much it was going to change me. I just thought it was another little person coming to live in the house... 

"It opened up a whole other side to me, a side I didn't know existed. I felt a love that I didn't realise it was possible to feel."