Kristen Bell felt no connection to daughter

CEBU, Philippines -  The newlywed Kristen Bell covers Flare magazine, and in the December issue, Bell is refreshingly honest when discussing her initial worries about becoming a mother.

“I kept saying to Dax in all sincerity during my pregnancy, ‘I just don’t know how I’m going to like her as much as I like the dogs,’” the 33-year-old actress reveals. “I was being serious. Because I love my dogs; they are my children. I love people the more I know them, and I didn’t know her.”

Kristen, whose pregnancy was unplanned, gave birth to daughter Lincoln in March 2013. But leading up to her first child’s arrival, she wasn’t feeling very maternal.

“It could’ve been a water bottle in my belly, that’s about how connected I felt to her during my pregnancy,” Bell continues. “But within about 24 hours after she came out, my hormones reset, and they reprogrammed my feelings about her.”

Kristen wed baby daddy and longtime love Dax Shepard, 38, in a low key and low budget ceremony last month.

So what’s the secret to maintaining a healthy relationship? “Our main rule is: Check your ego at the door, and be aware of when the other person is spinning out,” Kristen shares. “As artists, everything is vanity and narcissism driven: my career, the strategy behind it, the next level I want to hit, my photo shoot, how I was in my acting scene, my premiere. So we try to do a really good job of being human beings in the rest of our life.”

Another key to having a happy marriage? Maintaining their privacy.

“Dax and I realize it might make someone smile when we have sassy Twitter fights, or when I tweet something that he says to me,” she explains. “I’m fully aware that it’s a tiny taste of our relationship. But the real day-to-day, we are extremely territorial of [our privacy].”

She adds, “I would really not like to see the aftermath of the first person who tries to take a picture of Lincoln. There are going to be a lot of stitches.”