Kourtney Kardashian Shares a Room With Baby Rocky to Practice ‘Attachment Parenting’ 

The golden era of sisterly chaos is back. Remember when Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami and Kourtney and Khloé Take the Hamptons dominated our screens with their infectious laughter, pranks on Kim, and inside jokes about Kris? Well, the duo is back! This week, Khloé welcomes her big sister on Khloé in Wonder Land to talk about the beautiful complexity of blended families. 

“Becoming a mom again really ignited, intensely ignited, my motherly role, my motherly instinct, and my feminine energy,” Kourtney says, reflecting on how her marriage to Travis Barker and the birth of their son Rocky transformed her approach to motherhood. 

While Kourtney has stepped back from the family’s reality TV empire in recent years—much to her sisters’ chagrin—her reasons are definitely justified. As a mother of seven, she’s orchestrating what could be called a modern-day Brady Bunch, albeit with more black leather and money. Her family constellation includes three kids with ex-partner Scott Disick—Mason, Penelope, and Reign—plus baby Rocky with Travis. She is also a stepmom to Travis’s kids: son Landon, daughter Alabama, and his stepdaughter Atiana, whom he shares with ex-wife Shanna Moakler.

In this candid and cheeky conversation, the sisters explore Kourtney’s evolution as a stepmom, their different parenting styles (Khloé is very scheduled while Kourt is more go with the flow), and why Kourtney left the family group chat—again.

Life in the Barker-Kardashian household

Life with seven kids fluctuates between chaos and being a ghost town. “There are days when everyone is home and everyone has friends over. There are days when no one is home, and it’s Travis, me, and the baby,” Kourtney explains. “The balance is nice. But Travis and I love when everyone is home.”

Sunday dinner is the family’s sacred ritual. Kourtney says they set the table for 12 people (the full amount of seats at the table) and whoever can come, comes. “We just let it flow,” Kourtney says. ”There’s been times when it’s just been me, Travis and Rocky. We set the table for everyone, but no one else can make it. Whoever comes to dinner, it’s going to be good. I’ve let go of control. I’ve learned to be that way.”

Research shows that it takes four to seven years for a blended family to feel like a unit. Kourtney shares that combining the two families was a slow and intentional process. Kourtney’s older three kids had lived in the same house their whole lives, making the shift to a shared space a delicate process. “We stayed a year and a half separately but married and living a block away from each other,” she says. “I think that was a helpful transition.”

Even now, she acknowledges the layered experience: “But even on the days when it’s hard, there’s so much more love. It’s such a deeper, richer existence.”

Lessons from Kourtney Kardashian’s childhood

Growing up with her stepdad Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn), she recalls feeling controlled and micromanaged, which made their relationship difficult. That experience has informed her decision to embrace a different style of step-parenting. She doesn’t discipline her stepchildren, instead describing their relationship as “lots of conversations and laughs.”

She explains, “We’ll talk about it, and he can handle the harder things. I try to give good advice and be a good role model. I try to be a good influence or example. When they want me to be, I can be there as much or as little as they want.”

Kourtney says it helps that Travis and her were friends longer than they’ve been romantically involved. That history of friendship and knowing Travis’ kids has proven invaluable. “Having that history definitely helped,” she says. 

Tips for blending families with kids

Travis and Kourtney married in 2022. Now three years into life as a blended family, Kourtney has some advice for blended families. As a family unit, she says, “we have to come together and figure out what is our new way.”

She highlights the importance of approaching disagreements with curiosity rather than defensiveness: “What am I supposed to learn from this? How do I grow from this moment? We are two people with two brains who have different opinions. How do we each express our opinions and be heard?”

Humor is another tool she uses in parenting. “I also make a choice to laugh about things and not take it so seriously,” she says. “It’s choosing to not take things so seriously and have a sense of humor.”

On living authentically as a mom

Kourtney’s natural approach to parenting has always sparked debate. However, since Rocky’s birth, she’s become even more committed to radical simplicity instead of focusing on “stuff.” She says, “I used to want the best lotion or the best oil. Now, I just use organic coconut oil. I keep it pretty simple. As long as I have a boob, I’m okay.” 

She shares a room with Rocky, a style of parenting called attachment parenting. It’s where you don’t separate for as much as possible during the first three years to nurture a secure attachment. Khloé thinks some of her sister’s parenting practices are wild, like holding her son the entire time he naps. Kourtney says, “With the attachment parenting, I hold him for his naps—the whole time. He’s like 23 pounds. I hold him for three hours sometimes. One time, he napped for five hours.” 

Kardashian is big on co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, and minimizing work commitments. She works for a couple hours one day a week, spending the rest of her time at home being a mother. 

For Kourtney, living authentically means not conforming, especially when it comes to parenting norms. She says, “Why do kids f–king go to school?’ Truly, it’s so dated…I will nurse my kids’ fever versus giving Tylenol or ibuprofen. I just won’t do that… Once I started therapy, I kind of started challenging the ways we did things sometimes, the way we all functioned. I love to go against the grain.”