text: David Cameron has revealed that he and his wife Samantha were 'falling apart' with the pressure of trying to care for their son Ivan after he was born disabled. In an intensely personal interview, he revealed: 'We weren't falling out with each other, but we were falling apart just coping with the nights and everything.' His comments were echoed by his wife who, in a separate interview, said the stresses of looking after Ivan pushed their relationship close to 'breaking point'. Scroll down for video . David Cameron has revealed that he and his wife Samantha (pictured together in 2008 with their son Ivan) were 'falling apart' with the pressure of trying to care for their son  after he was born with a rare brain disorder . Ivan (pictured) was born with Ohtahara Syndrome, a rare brain disorder which left him in a wheelchair, needing to be fed through a tube and suffering from cerebral palsy and severe epileptic fits. He died aged six in 2009 . In a tearful interview, Mrs Cameron spoke for the first time of the 'nightmare' of learning that their first child had a rare disorder which left him needing round-the-clock care. Within a year, she said, looking after him had left the Camerons 'totally shattered' and trying to 'find a way through'. And she described the shock of his sudden death, which came 'out of the blue'. Ivan was born with Ohtahara Syndrome, a rare brain disorder which left him in a wheelchair, needing to be fed through a tube and suffering from cerebral palsy and severe epileptic fits. He died aged six in 2009. Speaking days ahead of what would have been his 13th birthday on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said: 'It's true – it is a knock. You are exhausted. You become a part-time parent, nurser, carer, doctor.' Mrs Cameron recalled how within days of Ivan's birth she knew 'something wasn't quite right' because he was making 'funny, jerky movements'. Speaking to the Mail on Sunday – which pictured her at home in Downing Street with her husband and their other children – she said: 'It's your worst nightmare. They did a whole load of tests, they push the box of tissues towards you and you feel like you're in an episode of Casualty.' Mr Cameron said Ivan was a 'blessing in lots of ways' but admitted the strains he created on their life left them both 'falling apart'. He said: 'We both worked out that we could cope, and find a way through this' Dressed, fittingly, in a fleece, David Cameron took a break from the campaign trail yesterday to be photographed feeding a newborn, orphaned lamb. He cradled the young animal to feed it milk from a bottle after dropping in at Dean Lane Farm in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire. At one point they were snuggled up so close that they were nuzzling each other’s faces. Inevitably, it prompted a flurry of comments on Twitter, several from Labour supporters, many of them unrepeatable and several referring to mint sauce. David Cameron took a break from the campaign trail yesterday to feed a newborn, orphaned lamb in Witney . The diagnosis had 'frightening' and 'scary' implications, she said, adding: 'It changes your life for ever. It's tough, lonely and isolating. You are terrified of not being able to cope.' She praised her 'amazing, strong and steady' husband and his 'sense that it's going to be OK'. Mr Cameron, in a separate interview with the Sunday Times, said Ivan was a 'blessing in lots of ways' but admitted the strains he created on their life left them both 'falling apart'. He said: 'It takes over your life. We both worked out that we could cope, and find a way through this.' In a frank admission of the pressures their son's condition had placed on their relationship, Mrs Cameron said: 'There's lots of people in our situation whose marriages don't survive. 'Looking after a disabled child pushes you to the limits of what you can cope with physically, emotionally. By the end of the first year we were totally shattered and pretty much at breaking point. Samantha Cameron . Samantha Cameron has said she would be ‘fine’ if her children copied her and got a tattoo. The Prime Minister’s wife has a leaping dolphin on her right foot which she had done during a gap year spent travelling in Indonesia following her A-levels. Asked how she would feel if her children followed her example, she told the Mail on Sunday: ‘I’d be fine about it. ‘Obviously you’d have to explain that they might not want it in certain places where it would be for ever. But no, I wouldn’t have any problem with them having a tattoo.’ 'The doctors realised we needed help. But as parents you have this feeling that you shouldn't ask for help.' She added that they were 'so, so proud' of Ivan, saying: 'He was very beautiful, one of the great gifts in our lives. A day when you haven't been to hospital, a day when he smiled, or a day when you haven't cried, becomes the most amazing day.' She described her battles with education bosses who tried to send Ivan to a mainstream school, before his parents secured him a place at a special needs school. 'Ivan had a feeding tube, very bad epilepsy. He couldn't sit up. He couldn't communicate at all. He needed to be somewhere more sensory and stimulating with people who knew how to look after him,' she said. His death came as a big shock. 'It was totally out of the blue and happened so quickly,' she said. 'It takes a long time before you see sunlight poking through the dark fog but never does the pain go as it's so connected to the love.' She said she still receives some bereavement counselling. Mr Cameron also spoke of Ivan's death: 'Your whole world collapses. You push pause on your life; you stop and have a think. Nothing really matters at that stage.' In her interview Mrs Cameron also revealed that her taste in music includes US psychedelic band Polica, whose latest album Shulamith has on its cover a topless woman with her back turned and her hair and neck covered in blood. Mrs Cameron saw the band perform in London when they toured Britain. The album is named after Canadian Marxist Shulamith Firestone, the author of The Dialectic Of Sex: The Case For A Feminist Revolution. Mrs Cameron also told of her embarrassment at being told Nancy and Elwen were having a 'huge pillow and duvet fight' when the family stayed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at her schloss near Berlin in 2013. This picture - from a new set of photographs showing the Camerons at home in Downing Street - has a clear message: That while the Prime Minister has been holding down the most important job in Britain for the past five years, he’s also made time to learn the all-important art of tying up his daughter’s hair for school. Showing that being left-handed is no handicap, he holds four-year-old Florence’s hair with one hand while brushing with the other. Behind them, the dishwasher looks suspiciously empty in the midst of the morning chaos inevitable in the home of any family of five, but reaching down to it provides the Prime Minister’s wife with an opportunity to show off her enviable figure . While this battered ministerial red box may have carried some of the most important documents in British history, as it lies around in the Cameron household it becomes the perfect toy. In this previously unseen 2011 family photograph of Florence as a toddler, she fits perfectly into the box as it sits perched on the yellow sofa from the Fancy Nancy range at sofaworks.com (£1,579). Tucked behind it appears to be a label from one of daddy’s trips to Brussels. And behind Florence, standing on the chest of drawers, is a Ribbon Copper Large Table Lamp from Habitat (£160) and a rattan tissue box cover (£26) from Oka . Breakfast and the family enjoy porridge – the pot is on the table in front of Mrs Cameron, who wears a cashmere grey, red and white Chinti and Parker sweater (£295). A box of Weetabix Organic is also just visible. The black mug is from Whittard, while the green chairs are by Knoll Saarinen, and cost £816 each. On the white marble breakfast table (£750 from amodernworld.co.uk) is a plastic tub containing toothbrushes, hairbrushes and nail scissors. There’s also a wicker basket containing Boots dietary supplements . This is our house! The Camerons’ children Elwen and Nancy in a photograph taken five years ago . Now in her home office, and this time wearing a more business-like blue spot sleeveless blouse by Joseph (£215), Mrs Cameron catches up on some work.The laptop is an Apple Macbook Pro, which costs from £899, and in the background you can just make out an arch lamp, similar to a £99 Arche from made.com .
target: David Cameron has admitted that he and wife Samantha were 'falling apart'
  Frank admission over pressure of trying to care for their disabled son Ivan .
  Ivan was born with rare disorder - Ohtahara Syndrome - and died aged six .