Savannah Guthrie Gets Up For Work At 3 AM — & She Still Puts In A Full Day As "Mom"

Exactly one minute before she goes live as co-anchor of the Today show on a sunny Friday, Savannah Guthrie gets a ping from her nanny, wondering what time daughter Vale has swimming that day. Not even a superstar network anchor with every resource available to her is immune to last-minute childcare kerfuffles.

So yes, that’s her, typing away on her iPhone seconds before greeting viewers with a radiant smile at 7 a.m. “Like most moms, you’re always thinking about your kid. Right through our whole show, I’m texting with my husband, with the babysitter. They’re always at the forefront of my mind. But I’m concentrating, too,” Guthrie says.

She makes it seem so effortless, pivoting from mom doing mom things to a journalist who sat down with both Hillary Clinton and Jake Gyllenhaal within the space of a week. And Guthrie, in person, is warmth and breeziness personified — you never glimpse the sweat and work that goes into making everything look so easy. You don't see the "fire" in her to succeed, which landed her in front of the nation's top morning show, and had her put off having kids until she was in her 40s. That she's doing both now, at 45, feels to her like fortuitous timing.

Her life is a toggle between the needs of her son and daughter, and the demands of her job, which this week included rushing to Las Vegas for two days following the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

And then she adds more to the pile. A few weeks ago Guthrie released a kids’ book, Princesses Wear Pants, extolling girls (and boys) to pay as much attention to the inside as the outside, which has resulted in numerous promotional shoots and appearances that have eaten into her family time. Just how does she fit all this into her day-to-day? Okay, yes, a car delivers her to and from work, but the rest of the considerable effort comes from Guthrie herself.

Ahead, she gives a glimpse into a day in her life, from waking up before sunrise to caring for her kids to hitting the sack when the rest of us sit down to dinner.

Welcome to Mothership: Parenting stories you actually want to read, whether you're thinking about kids right now or not, from egg-freezing to taking home baby and beyond. Because motherhood is a big if — not when — and it's time we talked about it that way.