But this time, there was another layer to the emotion.

“This year hits especially hard for me as my last baby, Alby, starts school, and my first baby, Sam, ends his school journey with Year 12.”

It was the kind of year that seemed to make the passage of time impossible to ignore.

Six Children, Six Very Different Stages

The Newton-Welsh family entered the school year spread across almost every stage of childhood.

Alby began Prep, while Perla moved into Year 1.

Monty entered Year 4, Lola Year 8 and Eva Year 11.

And then there was Sam, preparing for his final year of school.

For a mother raising six children, the practical demands of getting everyone ready are enormous.

But Lauren’s reflections suggested that the bigger challenge was emotional.

Every child was moving forward at the same time, but not necessarily in the same direction.

One needed reassurance about starting school.

Another was approaching the independence that comes with finishing it.

And Lauren was standing somewhere in the middle, watching both happen at once.

The End of the Baby Years

There was a particularly poignant reason Alby’s first day felt different.

He is Lauren’s sixth and youngest child.

So his move into Prep did not simply mark the beginning of another school year.

It marked the end of an era.

Lauren acknowledged the mixed emotions that come when a child begins this new stage of independence.

It is exciting to see them grow, she explained, but it can also bring “a pang of sadness for the baby years left behind.”

For parents, those years can feel endless while they are living through them.

Then suddenly, the youngest child is putting on a school uniform, carrying a backpack and walking into a world that exists beyond the family home.

For Lauren, that moment had finally arrived.

And At The Same Time, Her First Baby Is Almost Grown

While Alby was taking his first steps into school, Sam was preparing to take his final ones.

That contrast appears to be what made 2026 particularly significant for Lauren.

Her first baby was now in Year 12.

Her last baby was beginning Prep.

Between them were four more children, each moving through their own chapter.

It offered Lauren a rare view of the entire journey of childhood at once — from those first nervous school mornings to the final year before adulthood.

And perhaps that was why the year felt bigger than simply another back-to-school season.

Lauren Has Spoken Before About Learning to Let Go

The changes in her children’s lives have also made Lauren reflect on the way parenting evolves as children grow.

In a March 2026 column, she wrote about noticing the changing relationship with her older children as they move towards their teenage and adult years. When children are young, parents are at the centre of their world; as they grow older, that relationship gradually becomes more of a collaboration.

Lauren admitted that learning to let go can be difficult.

The things they once enjoyed doing together change.

Their interests change.

And eventually, parents have to find new ways to remain connected.

Yet she also acknowledged something many parents discover: even as children grow older, they never really stop being their parents’ babies.

“They will always be my babies,” Lauren wrote, while also saying she looked forward to seeing them enter this new phase of life — and hoped there would still be the occasional hug along the way.

That sentiment makes the significance of 2026 even clearer.

A Family Built Around Change

Lauren’s life has long been closely connected to family.

She is the daughter of Australian television legends Bert and Patti Newton and shares six children with her husband, former Olympic swimmer Matt Welsh. Her children are Sam, Eva, Lola, Monty, Perla and Alby.

Her own experience of growing up in a famous Australian family has also shaped the way she approaches motherhood.

Patti remains an important source of support and parenting advice for her daughter, while Lauren has spoken openly about how much she values the relationship between generations.

Now Lauren is watching her own children move through the same broad cycle of growing up — only this time, she is the mother standing at the school gate.

The Bittersweet Part of Watching Them Grow

There is no single dramatic moment when childhood disappears.

Instead, Lauren’s reflections suggest that it happens through a series of small milestones.

The first school uniform.

The first classroom.

The first school photograph.

Then, years later, the final school year.

The final exams.

The knowledge that the child who once needed help with almost everything is preparing to step into a much more independent life.

For Lauren, 2026 placed both ends of that journey side by side.

Her youngest was beginning.

Her eldest was preparing to finish.

And she was left with the bittersweet realisation that the years she once had ahead of her were suddenly becoming memories.

“Plenty of Tears”

Lauren knew the year would be emotional from the beginning.

“It is certainly going to be a year of firsts and lasts and plenty of tears,” she wrote.

Yet there was also excitement in what lay ahead.

She was not simply losing the baby years.

She was watching six individual people become more independent, each at their own pace.

And while that means letting go in ways that can be difficult for any parent, Lauren has made clear that she wants her children to feel supported through every stage.

For her, school is not about forcing every child into the same path. It is about finding the right environment for each of them and making sure they feel happy, comfortable and supported.

Perhaps that is what makes this particular family milestone so poignant.

2026 is not only the year Lauren’s youngest starts school and her eldest prepares to leave it.

It is the year she gets to see, all at once, just how far six little lives have travelled.

And for a mother who once held her “last baby” in her arms, watching him walk through the school gates may be the clearest reminder yet that those baby years really are behind her.