Reese Witherspoon, Hollywood’s leading lady, is opening up about all of the difficulties she faced after becoming a mother for the first time.

The Legally Blonde star was speaking to Kristen Bell and Monica Padman on Dax Shephard’s Armchair Expert podcast, where she discussed the many challenges she and her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe faced after the birth of their eldest daughter Ava.

“I didn’t have a lot of support with my first baby, and I realised pretty quickly that this isn’t going to work,” she explained.

“I tried to muscle through for five months with Ava, just not sleeping, and I became delirious,” she said, adding that she “couldn’t have worked” through her daughter’s first few months of life.

“I was fortunate enough to have money saved so that I didn’t have to work, but it’s just not a one-person job,” she admitted.

“I’d even go so far as to say it’s not a two-person job,” she added.

When she was only 23, the actress gave birth to her daughter Ava with Phillippe in September 1999. In October 2003, they welcomed their second child, son Deacon Phillippe.

In the fall of 2006, Witherspoon and Phillippe divorced.