Brian Dowling admits ‘dad guilt is real’ as he heads on holidays without baby girl

The former Big Brother winner jetted off to the Big Apple with his sister Aoife while his husband Arthur Gourounlian is looking after their five-month-old daughter Blake back in Ireland.

Aoife acted as the couple’s surrogate last year and helped them bring their little girl into the world in September.

After a whirlwind year, Brian decided to head away with his sister on a trip that he said was “a long time coming”.

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the 44-year-old shared a photo of him and his sister enjoying some mimosas at Dublin Airport as he wrote about how excited he was to explore one of his favourite cities.

“We are so excited to be off on a little trip together️,” he wrote.

“It somewhere I ADORE and Aoife has never been yet. This trip has been a long time coming. Bring on the next few days of laughing, sightseeing, maybe one or two glasses of fizz and of course making memories for life”.

The new dad also admitted he was worried about leaving Blake behind for the first time.

He wrote: “The dad guilt is REAL and set in last night as I was packing. Full transparency this Mimosa is helping. Little Ms BDG is in safe hands with her papa @gourounlian. Good luck with the morning spoon feed".

Arthur has been sending his husband updates from across the Atlantic, including a sweet photo of baby Blake smiling for the camera.

Brian posted the snap on his Instagram stories and joked: “I’m not sure a certain someone is missing her daddy at all”, to which Arthur responded: “Sorry daddy, we are having too much of a good time to miss anyone here. This was us at 8am.”