Helen writes:

Dear Duchess of Cambridge,

Not long to go! You must be so excited about the arrival of baby number two. Now Kate - can I call you Kate? I feel like I know you so well as we have so much in common. We both live in London, we both have two kids and we're both married to blokes called Will! SNAP.

Anyway, Kate, welcome to the 
mother-of-two club. Grab yourself a cuppa and a jaffa cake - here's the Scummy Mummies guide to what life will be like with a toddler and a baby.

1. EXPECT LESS PRESENTS

I know George was inundated with diamond rattles, sports cars and handmade rocking horses from President Obama, but don't expect the same this time round. You'll be lucky if Nick Clegg turns up with a bottle of cava and a packet of Hobnobs.

2. CBEEBIES IS YOUR FRIEND

George will watch a lot more TV over the next year. Just accept this now. Take that rule about one episode of Peppa Pig before bed and throw it in the bin. While you're busy feeding, changing nappies, burping and being generally bloody tired, stick G on the sofa with Mr Tumble and a packet of chocolate biscuits. You'll all be much happier. 

3. ALLOW TWO HOURS TO LEAVE THE HOUSE (MINIMUM)

Trying to get out of the front door (or across the moat in your case) will take about 65 times longer than you ever imagined. So if you need to get to Sing and Sign for 11am on Tuesday, start packing on Sunday night. (Better yet, don't bother with Sing and Sign at all - the sooner they can start asking for things, the more trouble for you.)

Here are some things that can happen when trying to leave the house with two small children:

a) Getting the toddler to put their shoes, coat, gloves and/or hat on will involve actual wrestling.
b) You will fail to pack at least one of the following: keys, phone, wallet, sanity.
c) You will agree to take along a ridiculously over-sized toy, just because you want to leave the house some time before midnight.
d) The moment you are finally ready to walk out the door, someone will need the potty or a 
nappy change.
e) All of the above.

 4. FORGET THE ORGANIC KALE SMOOTHIES

The second child eats crap much earlier than the first. I know it's hard to believe now, but in 12 months' time your little one will be sucking on a chicken nugget and knocking back Haribo at a birthday party like tequila shots.

Here's the good news: you won't care, because your children will be happy and quiet, and someone will have just given you a glass of white wine. You must drink that wine, Kate. Just stop whatever you're doing for five minutes and Drink. That. Wine.

5. YOUR BOOBS ARE HEADING SOUTH

Yes, right now you're prepped to breastfeed and you look like Dolly Parton. But soon those milk floats will make a bee-line for your navel. Sorry, K-Mo. My advice is to buy some good bras from Marks and Sparks - the fancy ones, not the two-packs. You'll thank me later.

6. YOUR MARRIAGE WILL GO WONKY FOR A BIT

I am sure your Will is a real sweetheart and super hands-on, but having a second kid puts a big strain on your relationship. There won't be as much time to sit around staring at your new baby, because someone needs to make sure the first kid is alive.

You'll probably both be a bit more sweary, maybe even shouty - this is perfectly normal. When things get tough, drink some wine together and laugh at some cat videos on YouTube. This will do wonders for your relationship. I'm sure it's what's kept the Queen and Phil together all this time.

7. WATCH OUT FOR GRANDPARENT FATIGUE

I know this sounds harsh but the grandparents will be less interested in number two, or more specifically, looking after two kids. So expect the babysitting offers to dwindle. You'll find Charles is suddenly doing the garden all the time, while Camilla is busy with her charity work.

8. FEEL THE LOVE, IN A DIFFERENT WAY

Of course you will love your new arrival as much as you love George. But you won't have the same amount of time or energy to devote to them. After two years of sleep deprivation, your attention to detail will be lacking. You won't mind so much if this one isn't dressed in matching Gap separates, or hasn't mastered downward-facing dog at Baby Yoga, or started talking by the age of six.

Don't worry, though - the second child will probably turn out more to be relaxed and well-adjusted as a result. Just look at Uncle Harry, he's a HOOT!

Well, I think that covers everything. The thing is, Midders, life with two kids is hectic, noisy, chaotic and twice as stinky. But it's wonderful, because you also get twice the giggles, smiles and cuddles. So enjoy the gorgeous, fabulous mess your life has just become. I'll see you for a latte and a muffin down High St Ken Starbucks.

Yours in scumminess,

Helen X


A new episode of The Scummy Mummies Podcast is released every fortnight - listen free via scummymummies.com or download via iTunes. We're on Facebook and Twitter - @scummymummies.

Dear listeners,

This summer will mark two years since we started the Scummy Mummies Podcast. We've met the most amazing people, laughed till we've cried, and drunk enough wine to fill a skip. Thank you so much to everyone who's listened in and shared their Scummy Confessions with us.

We'd like to keep the podcast going, but it costs us money to produce. So we're trialling a deal where we stick short adverts at the start and end of each episode. This way you get to keep enjoying the show for free, and we get to keep doing it. We might even be able to invest in exciting things like a new microphone or hummus from Waitrose.

If you have any feedback, about this or anything else, we'd love to hear from you - scummymummiespodcast@gmail.com. In the meantime, stay scummy!

Love,

Ellie and Helen X

Sorry last week's blog was a bit of a downer. I didn't mean to start a pity party. All right, maybe I did a bit, because you don't write 650 words about sleep deprivation and put it on the internet without expecting at least one person to go, "Poor you."

Anyway, if I sound different (jollier) and more like my old self (bitchier) this week, it's because I am, because I have HAD SOME SLEEP!

Here's the thing: cranial osteopathy WORKS. At least, it's working for us. Last week I took Joe to see Jo Mitchell at the Sunflower Centre in Brockley. We had a long chat about his birth (two months early, emergency Caesarean, head stuck for ten minutes.) I might have cried a bit.

Then Jo put her hands on various parts of my baby's body and... Did whatever it is cranial osteopaths do. I'm still not totally sure, to be honest.

Joe seemed to like it and eventually passed out. But he started screaming as we left the centre, and didn't really stop till we put him down in his Moses basket a few hours later.

'Oh well,' I thought, 'It was worth a try.'

He slept for five hours straight. The longest stretch he had ever managed.

I say "had", because the next night he slept for seven hours. SEVEN. Thus I achieved my goal of sleeping for more hours than there are members of One Direction (which recently became more attainable obvs.)

I felt amazing the next day. It was as if I'd been underwater for months, submerged beneath waves of tiredness, but I had broken the surface and taken a huge gulp of fresh air. I felt like I could swim an ocean or climb a mountain. I settled for loading the dishwasher and returning the library books we borrowed the week before Joe was born, which is basically the same.   

It didn't last, of course: Joe switched to a two-hourly wake-up cycle that night, and by the end of the week he was back to pulling all-nighters. I emailed Jo, trying to sound positive ("Sorry to bother, just wondering, is this normal?") rather than desperate ("Oh God please help you fixed my baby and now I think I've broken him again please help me argh.")

Yes, said Jo, it's normal, and we've made a good start. So we returned to the centre for a second session - and that night, Joe slept for five hours. And the night after that. And the night after that.

Last night... Not so much. But now a bad night means waking up every two hours, instead of never going to sleep at all. And I'm optimistic that next week's appointment with Jo will put us back on track.

It's changed everything. I don't worry about crashing our new car because I'm so tired. I'm not afraid to agree to meet people for coffee in case I'm too exhausted to make it on the day. Some nights, I don't even go to bed until half-past eight.

So now, based on nothing more than my own anecdotal experience (I'd love to hear others), I am a huge fan of cranial osteopathy. I think everyone should have it. Not just babies but tired mums, creaky old people, perfectly well people, small dogs that won't stop yapping, Nigel Farage.

And I think it should be available on the NHS. That's the kicker - it isn't, and it's not cheap. I estimate I'll probably end up spending the equivalent of a family weekend away on Joe's treatment. Frankly, I'd give up two weeks in the Bahamas in exchange for a year of decent sleep.

But I know that isn't an option for everyone. So thanks to the reader who told me about the Osteopathic Centre for Children, which operates on a pay-what-you-can basis.

I'm sticking with Jo, though, because she is amazing and wonderful and has kind eyes the colour of the Aegean that make me feel like everything's going to be alright. Basically, she's turned my baby off and on again. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but whatever she does is working. Now I can sleep and breathe and smile, and best of all, my baby can too.

Happy Friday! 

Ellie writes:

My house is a war zone. The signs are everywhere: half-empty bottles of gripe water, discarded Infacol droppers, dummies scattered on every surface. (I think they might be breeding.)

Swaddling wraps and sleeping bags lie in crumpled heaps, or draped over the wide variety of baby chairs we've tried. Some rock, some swing, some vibrate, some play music; none of them actually get anyone to bloody sleep.

Nor does anything else we've tried. On a good night, Joe only wakes up once an hour. On a bad night, he's unable to stay asleep beyond ten minutes, and I get no rest at all. The other night I was awake with him from midnight until he finally settled at 6am. At 6.04am, my three-year-old bounded in, ready to start his day.

We've asked advice from everyone we can think of. GPs and health visitors. Grandmas and friends. Random women behind us in the queue at Argos, where we've gone to pick up yet another swingy chair that eats batteries so fast it costs more to run than  a racehorse.

After a few weeks, these conversations have started to go the same way:

"Have you tried X?"

"Yes. It didn't work."

"Oh. Well, it's not forever."

I know it's not forever. I've already been through it with my first baby, to a less extreme degree. But it's still hard.

The worst bit isn't being knackered; it's seeing my baby in pain and exhausted, and feeling like a failure because I can't seem to help. There's an extra dynamic here because Joe was born premature, and spent six weeks in hospital. That meant six weeks of watching him go through injections, tests, tube swaps and all the rest, without being able to help. 

And because I had another son at home, I couldn't even be there 24 hours a day to comfort him. There is one positive - often I don't mind being awake with Joe all night, because it just feels like I'm catching up.

But then the day starts, and it's awful. I struggle to find the energy to be the fun, cheerful mummy Charlie wants, or to be patient while he spends eight minutes putting his underpants on. 

My husband has learned to avoid probing me with intolerably infuriating personal questions like, "How are you?" or, "Have you seen the car keys?" And as for asking what's for dinner - he might as well enquire if I fancy a threesome with Katie Hopkins.

I know it's not forever, though, so we plod on, and the search for a magic cure continues. There isn't one, of course - but somehow the research makes me feel less helpless. It's like when Joe was in hospital and I spent hours reading the telephone directory-sized Preemies book from cover to cover, regardless of the fact he didn't have 98 per cent of the conditions described. (But one day, there will be an entire pub quiz round on necrotising enterocolitis, and I will storm it.)

So that's how I spend those long, dark hours - baby on the boob, iPhone in the hand, Googling things like "SERIOUSLY THOUGH DIDN'T EVERYONE GIVE BABIES RUM IN THE SEVENTIES?"

There is one suggestion that keeps cropping up - cranial osteopathy. From what I understand, this is an alternative therapy that involves a specially trained person squeezing your baby's head, and then they sleep like you've given them a pint of Bacardi. The parenting forums are full of people saying it's brilliant. But there are skeptics too, and it's expensive, so it's always been bottom of the list of things to try.

Now, though, we've reached the bottom of the list. The health visitor has run out of suggestions, Argos has run out of swingy chairs, I have run out of patience. So we're going to give cranial osteopathy a go. In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions...