Baby talk

It's always an awkward social situation when you have to introduce a new baby to the old baby. But when my wife gave birth to a (charming and incredibly handsome) boy recently, we had no such worries; because thanks to extensive research into all the latest child psychology theories, our 16-month-old daughter was thoroughly well prepared.

That's a lie, of course. With a 16-month-old daughter in the house, you're lucky if you get to research the back of the cornflakes box over breakfast. In reality, her preparation was limited mostly to us pointing at pictures of babies and then pointing at the mother's bump; which may or may not help, but it's important to do it anyway, because it allows your child the opportunity to embarrass you later on whenever a friend with a weight problem comes to visit.

In any case, when the big moment came at the maternity hospital, the baby introduction was an anticlimax; it was the mother/daughter reunion that was scary.

There was a long pause when their eyes met again (after a lapse of four days), and to say it was a dramatic pause would be an understatement. For the longest moment she stood there in the doorway, swaying slightly in her tiny size-four shoes (the baby, I mean, not her mother) with no trace of a smile. It's hard to know what was going on in her mind, but I'd guess something like this: "So, here you are again . . . you walk out of our lives with no explanation . . . sob . . . me and daddy had to just carry on as best we could . . . sob . . . it hasn't been easy - he's not very good around the house, God knows . . . and now you just reappear and expect us to pick things up as if nothing had happened . . ."

But finally, she walked across the room, and there was a hugging scene of the kind that in a film would be accompanied by an orchestra, at least; and it was so intense the new baby and I had to look away.

As for our fears about sibling rivalry, the biggest threat to the new arrival so far has been the intensity of his sister's affection. In the first few days, she would kiss him with the gentleness of a butterfly landing on a leaf. But, as her enthusiasm grew, she started taking longer and longer run-ups; and there was one occasion last week when she dived in as if for a flying header, and she would have put him in the back of the net (as it were) if we hadn't got him out of the way in time.

Kisses apart, they've already struck up a partnership. Babies are like old-fashioned trade union activists, in that they approach every problem with the attitude: "What do we want?" (answer: "Food!", "Water!", "A nappy change!") and "When do we want it?" (answer: "Now!").

But, as you soon discover, they also have a "one-out, all-out" policy. When the new baby cries, his sister gets upset too. And if his demands (whatever they are) aren't met quickly, she joins in on backing vocals so that, sometimes, it's like having two of the Jackson Five in the nursery.

If you're used to dealing with a girl, of course, a boy is a whole different challenge. When he wees, for one thing, it's liable to go anywhere (a hazard of maleness which, most women will tell you, doesn't end with childhood), making it as tricky as putting a nappy on a garden sprinkler.

And then the technology evolves so fast! I was amazed, for instance, to find that the recommended method of caring for the belly-button area had changed completely in between babies. I don't know whether this was because of a bug in the 1998 babies, or an improvement in the 1999 versions, but there's a totally different approach now.

I can also report that the whole birth experience is less painful second time around (and I think that goes for the mother too, by the way). But one aspect we weren't prepared for was Holles Street radio playing Andrew Lloyd Webber's greatest hits throughout labour. Although I was determined to go through the birth experience naturally, there was one point - I think it was the duet between Pavarotti and Sarah Brightman - when I almost gave in and asked for a painkiller.

I also completely forgot the advice in the first pre-natal video that, if it was a night event, the father should fix himself a sandwich before leaving for the hospital. As a result of this oversight, I had to go for four hours in the labour ward without food. And women think we have it easy.