They're all different - different personalities and sleep patterns Some get into a routine quickly, others take a lot longer. And it's all very well for the baby manuals to say "sleep when your baby sleeps", but what if you have a job outside the home, or more than one child? There are no easy answers, but here are a few pointers.First, there is no such thing as a typical baby or typical sleep patterns. Everyone delights in warning you that you're going to lose sleep but it does not sink in until after the event. You'll have to reach new heights of self-control when smug parents tell you about their no-problem LTs after your fourth sleepless night in a row. Sleep deprivation is possibly the first-time parent's greatest shock. Your LT wants you to be the kind of happy smiley parent found only in adverts and this will require recharging your batteries.

We could all use some help.And so to the Little Terror series: Little Terror's First Six Weeks, The Little Terror Good Sleeping Guide, The Little Terror Good Feeding Guide, and The Little Terror Good Behaviour Guide.Over the next three weeks, we will look at how you can cope with career and Little Terror, starting with that age-old problem - sleep. Many new parents are fighting a losing battle juggling home and career - suppressing the guilt while watching the last train of their social lives leave the station without them. A close friend introduced me to Charlotte. We felt it was important to gear the books towards today's hectic lifestyles. Gone - for most of us - are the sepia-tinted days of bread-winning dads and stay-at-home mums looking after the kid and preparing home-cooked suppers for hubby's return. I scoured the bookshops for a two-syllabled idiot-proof guide geared towards shell-shocked, sleep-deprived, first-time parents and soon realised the need for a series dealing with childcare issues, in a practical, common-sense, humorous way. At 39, the nearest I'd got to fatherhood was being roped into a modelling assignment for Mother & Baby Magazine (I was handsomely rewarded with pounds 50 and a parking ticket). But the birth of my son, Alfie, plunged me headlong into the post-natal world of Calpol, cradle cap and nappy rash.

However many times you have seen the New York skyline, the view from here is breathtaking.. So you have a new Little Terror? In the first of a series, Trevor Dunton offers some advice, with the help of Charlotte Preston I never expected to be a dad, let alone collaborate with the sleep and childcare expert Charlotte Preston on a series of survival guides for first-time parents. It could dent your spending money, though.Night movesTo see pure magic, and save some cash, walk across Brooklyn Bridge after dark. Don't look round until you are halfway across (the point at which you feel yourself starting to head downhill).