Gillian Anderson doesn't find being a parent "easy"

She said: "[Maybe other mothers have] tougher nerve endings.

"[I do the] right thing [and play but] my kids can sense it's not easy for me. I struggled when Piper was little as well.

"I remember getting restless and feeling this pressure that I should be doing something else, but when I was doing something else feeling this pressure that I should be with my child.

"It's that constant tug of war...and I don't think I'm alone with that. I try to be tolerant and patient.

"How I am in the house depends on my time of the month: I'm either embracing of the noise or it's nails on a chalk board. But they know that it's just Mum. There's an acceptance and a lovingness."

The 48-year-old actress is much older than her siblings, the late Aaron - who died from a brain tumour in 2011 aged 30 - and Zoe - and it was "really important" to her that she had a third child as there had been a similar large gap between Piper and Oscar, and Gillian is fascinated by watching her boys interact because it is nothing she has ever experienced.

She told You magazine: "It was really important to me that Oscar had [another] sibling because Piper felt like an only child, Oscar's dad was an only child and I didn't want to repeat that with Oscar.

"So his relationship with his brother is something new to me. I've never observed similar-age sibling relationships before and it's really fascinating and beautiful.

"Independence-wise being an only child is good, but there are traits that I have seen in other only children: being quite selfish, not really wanting to share.

"It's taken a long time for me to push the boundaries of those and be less controlling, less protective of my world and my space."

The former 'X Files' star regrets "missing out" on her younger years of fame because she was so obsessed and worried about her appearance to enjoy herself.

She admitted: "For years I was very self-centred and focused on my body, my weight, and it caused so much sadness. That really moves me now, just how much of my younger life I missed out on because I was so focused on my thighs or my outfit; it was such a waste of time."