12th February:

When you become a parent for the first time, someone sneaks into your bedroom at night and flicks a switch in your head. The change is irreversible, and there is not a single thing you can do about it. Fortunately, however, you adapt very quickly to the new parameters and have no time to mourn the passing of the person you used to be. You are too busy assembling a Young Einstein playmat with one hand whilst holding the phone in the other hand at the same time as rocking the baby to sleep with your foot. And they say men cannot multi-task...

At some point during the first 4 to 6 weeks, the combination of work responsibilities and sleep-deprivation will drive you into the spare room. Any guilt you may feel at temporarily abandoning your role as father and provider will vanish at 7am the next morning when you awake feeling refreshed and remarkably normal. Resist the temptation, however, to suggest making this a more permanent arrangement - this will seriously diminish any chance you had of ever having sex again. Which was not large to begin with.

It's also worth noting that you should bite your tongue and refrain from mentioning how busy you are at work when the baby wakes up at 3am and starts making noises that curl the edges of the bedroom wallpaper. At times like this, sympathy is rarer than hen's teeth and anything derrogatory that happens to spill forth from your weary lips will invariably give birth to a resentment that smoulders under the duvet for several hours before rushing out to bite you on the bottom at breakfast time.

Oh, and never fart loudly and then blame the baby. They always know it was you.