The Dark Knight star admits she used to be highly critical watching parents and their kids out and about, and it was only after becoming a mum to little Ramona in 2006 that she began to accept she had been wrong to pass comment all along.

Gyllenhaal tells Parent & Child magazine, ""I used to be judgemental of the way other people would parent.

""I would look at someone talking on a cell phone while her baby was asleep in a stroller and think, 'How can that mother have her cell phone out?' Then you actually have a baby and you're like, 'She's sleeping; I have 10 minutes; I'll make three phone calls.'

""I think so much of my judgment - not only about how people parent, but about people in general - went away when I became a mum.""

The actress, who had a second daughter named Gloria earlier this year (12), also had to come to terms with her own realistic terms of parenthood and the star has now adopted a more relaxed approach to motherhood.

She says, ""I was 28 when Ramona was born, and I had this idea that I think a lot of people in their twenties have, that I was supposed to do it perfectly. At least, if not perfectly, then exceptionally well. I've realised that that isn't possible and that part of being a human is making mistakes - and making lots of them.""