Sleepless nights and removing lipstick stains: 12 things you should know before becoming a mum

Are you looking for tips on how to get that baby of yours to stop shrieking like a fire alarm every time you put her down? In search of magical tips on how to get her to sleep for longer than 20 minutes, like your friends’ babies, who do nothing but sleep and communicate their needs in a civilised manner (i.e. not like a fire alarm)?

Then you’ve come to the wrong place! Not a single one of my three children ever mastered the art of sleeping on a stationary horizontal surface. Unlike the babies belonging to smug mothers whose children obeyed a military schedule, my dear offspring preferred a sling or a moving pushchair (although never a car seat, which they reacted to as if they were being hosed down with hydrochloric acid.)

I did, however, spend a number of years at home in the company of my toddler offspring, which is a laudable achievement, since many women deal with this problem by escaping to work. As a public service, therefore, here is the list of tips I wish I had been given at the time.

1. Don’t keep dangerous objects (‘toddlers’) in close proximity to valuable objects (‘lipsticks’/‘mobile phones’), particularly if there are other problematic things within reach (‘cream-coloured carpets’/’toilets’). Ideally, valuable objects should be kept out of reach of toddlers, such as in another house or in outer space.

2. Don’t for one second believe the internet when it tells you that dishwashing liquid can remove lipstick stains from aforementioned cream-coloured carpets. The only thing that can disguise a lipstick stain from a carpet is a cleverly placed rug.

3. Don’t move into houses with cream-coloured carpets. Or carpets of any other colour.

4. Cry if you must when the two-year-old drowns your brand-new mobile in the toilet, but pause for two seconds to fish it out. If left to its own devices forgotten in a side table drawer, your phone will revive itself four months later, albeit only after you have shelled out for a new phone. (And no, a bag of rice is not a cure-all for drowned phones.)

5. Don’t put the entire week’s uniform into the washing machine on Sunday evening and expect it to be done on Monday morning. Washing machines are not immortal and have been known to die at 10PM on Sunday evening mid-spin cycle. And when the washing machine guy solemnly promises to send a new washing machine over as soon as possible, he does not mean ‘in the next five minutes’, but ‘a week on Wednesday’.

6. Forget about hiding in the bathroom when craving alone time. A closed bathroom door to a toddler (and if you are particularly unlucky, a husband) is what a red rag is to a bull in a ring. There is no solace to be found in a bathroom. Instead, it is better to create an emergency, such as ‘forgetting’ to buy milk, and then dashing off to the shops for a glorious ten minutes as soon as your other half returns.

7. Styrofoam balls - the type used in art projects at school - repel vacuum cleaners and are the work of the devil. Teachers like to use them in sewing projects, which would not be so worrisome if those teachers also did not encourage the use of paperclips to ‘sew’ Styrofoam-filled cushions. After you pick your child up from school, this Styrofoam monstrosity is especially memorable just after that sharp right turn on the way home.

8. It is never too early to start reading to your child. However, if you were an Enid Blyton fan as a youngling and wish to induct your own child into the club, you should be aware that publishers have embraced political correctness like it is the last lifeboat on the Titanic. The Famous Five series now contains a character called Rick, because seeing the word ‘Dick’ on the page requires a dose of smelling salts today. The Faraway Tree series has suffered a similar fate. You have been warned.

9. Goldilocks was a brat who deserved to be chased out by the bears for breaking in and entering. I'm surprised they didn't eat her for breakfast instead of the porridge.

10. Babies and toddlers do not need ironed clothes. You will do enough ironing when you have to iron beastly pleats into school uniform in the coming years. As a rule, ironing does not equate to good mothering (although if you belong to that strange subset that finds solace in ironing, then by all means proceed.)

11. Speaking of ironing, you can iron nail polish remover off a wooden table. Now, I know what you are thinking. You are either thinking, “I would never be stupid enough to leave a bottle of nail polish remover uncovered on a wooden table”, or perhaps, “I don’t wear nail polish.” However, some of us are stupid enough to leave lids only loosely screwed on. Also, one day, that baby of yours will reach the stylish age of six and ask her grandmother for nail polish. And the grandmother who would never, ever have entertained such a ludicrous request from you thirty years ago will go out and buy your supermodel six bottles.

But the grandmother will forget that the supermodel attends a school that considers nail polish a crime punishable by sending out long, unwanted emails to parents. Ergo, you will find yourself making an emergency trip to the store to purchase nail polish remover. And one day, you will find its contents spilt on your wooden dining table – except you won’t find this out immediately.

You will learn it some moments later once the nail polish remover has had time to soak in nicely and leave a luminous white stain that glows like the full moon on a cloudless night. Don’t cry! Grab an old T-shirt and your iron, and start ironing over the stain. Don’t ask me how or why, but that stain magically disappears. (Addendum: if you do this over a fancy wooden table polished black, you will also lose the black paint. Sorry. Stop buying fancy furniture.)

12. Finally, if you are currently in ownership of a non-sleeping fire alarm baby, the most important tip to remember is that you WILL sleep again one day. I promise. And so will your baby. Especially when she is twelve years old and needed to be up for school ten minutes ago. Good luck blaring all the fire alarms you want trying to get her out of bed then.

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