London, May 17 (Inditop.com) Singer Lily Allen is using her announced break from music to start a family as she wants to have a baby “within a year”.

The “Smile” hitmaker announced last year she is planning a hiatus from recording and performing live to concentrate on launching a designer clothes hire shop and setting up her own record company.

But the 25-year-old admits there’s another reason for her break from pop as she is longing to have children with her boyfriend Sam Cooper and hopes to use her time off to become a mother, reports contactmusic.com.

“I’d like to have a child within a year. It’ll be a minimum of four or five years before I make a record again. I know what commitment it takes to release an album. I don’t think that mixes well with the idea of settling down and having children, which is ultimately my goal and more of a priority than flying around the world,” she said.

“I’d want to be really hands-on for the first two or three years of having a little one. I don’t want to leave them,” she added.

Earlier, Allen became pregnant while she was dating Ed Simons, but suffered a miscarriage in 2008.