STOP EVERYTHING. HOLLY WILLOUGHBY HAS WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT BEING A MUM.

Thank the LORD. I know I would NEVER attempt to have another baby without the crucial advice of an incredibly wealthy daytime TV presenter.

The book, “Truly Happy Baby – It Worked For Me Because I’m Rich And Famous” (I embellish a bit…) is released tomorrow so if you get in the queue at Waterstones now, you might be the first person to EVER read why Holly thinks it’s so important to allow yourself to cry (essentially: You’ve just had a baby! It’s overwhelming! Cry it out hon! – plus the nanny can totally hold the baby while you fix your mascara…)

Now then. I’m sure Holly is a dead good mum, (she won Celebrity Mum of the Year in 2010, so she must be) and if I was rich and famous I would definitely have a nanny and wear ironed shirts all day like Holly is on the front cover. What I wouldn’t do is write a book telling plebs how to look after their babies so that I can make a ton of cash off the back of my celebrity and their perceived stupidity.

But seeing as I’m not rich and famous, here is MY guide to having a truly happy non-celebrity baby, learned during the early weeks with my first, exactly 17 years ago:

  1. Your vagina will KILL. Every time you look at your baby’s ginormous head you will be reminded why and hate your partner for having sperm.
  2. Your boobs will KILL. Every time your baby cries you will hate your partner for not having boobs.
  3. You will hate your partner.
  4. You will also hate your mother-in-law who will arrive at your house 45 minutes after you leave the hospital to helpfully remind you that it’s time to get back into shape because you won’t be able to look after the baby properly while you’re “carrying all that extra weight”…
  5. Your baby will also hate you immediately due to their instinctive sense that you are completely shit and incapable. This hatred will manifest itself in their attempts to gnaw off your nipples all day and night, yet still lose weight at a rate which makes the midwife demand that you demonstrate your pathetic feeding technique and then declare that you must stop it now and give the poor child a bottle which you do whilst sobbing into your baby’s face because you know you’re watching it die in front of your very water-logged eyes.
  6. After a week of bottle-feeding everything will be brilliant. You develop a technique where you can feed the baby in their bouncy chair with your foot propping the bottle into their darling little mouth, leaving your hands free to hold a fag and a glass of wine and chat on the phone.
  7. You put the iron away. Ironing babygros is for servants and you don’t have one. You will not see the iron again for 17 years.
  8. You put your sex-drive away. You will not see that again for 17 years either.
  9. Then one day your baby sleeps for more than 23 minutes. It is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened in your entire life.
  10. Shortly after this your baby will smile for the first time which will make you sob uncontrollably into their face again because you realise that you desperately adore this baby in a deeply achey way, whilst also loathing it quite a bit sometimes, which is perfectly as it should be and how it will be from now until the end of your days.

Items 11 – 10,003,849 are available on request…