When you have two girls eleven years apart you can't help noticing how quickly life whizzes by.

I look at Dolly, clapping, waving and staggering a couple of unsteady steps (these are her only three party tricks) and I have flashbacks of her older sister, Flo, as clear as yesterday. The baby is a daily, noisy reminder of how fast the years have passed, and it makes me want to put out a great big 'Stop' sign reading: 'Growth will resume shortly. (But only when I've got my head around it.)'

Since my imminent meltdown was appeased by your comments regarding Finje not yet being able to write her name, I was wondering if I could be so bold as to call on your wisdom again?

Last week, we enjoyed the hospitality of two wonderful friends who live "Down South" in Nürnburg, I'll call them Mr and Mrs O. Mrs O is a Kiwi and Mr O a German so we have a lot in common.

Mr O is a GP in a family practice. With Finje's obsession for all things medical, he was kind enough to give her some hands-on experience. He pronounced her Doctor's Assistant and took her off to work, whilst Mrs O and I fired up the coffee machine for a child-free morning of English speaking catch-up.

I'm going to come right out and say it: I co-sleep with my baby and I love it. My husband does too, and we both feel that the pros outweigh the cons.

The interesting thing about it is that when you mention in conversation that you are a co-sleeping family, people can look at you strangely. Or, other parents will then admit to you that they do it too, but it's never something that's brought up freely. In some ways, it's almost a taboo.

My new friend S (whom I met at antenatal classes) was delighted to hear that this was our choice, but wasn't prepared to tell me about it until I 'fessed up.
"Oh we have our 15 week old in our bed too!" she said, when I had spilled the beans.

When I asked her why she hadn't mentioned it earlier in the conversation when it had come up she replied, "Well, you know, my midwife said it wasn't a good idea, and when I was in hospital after giving birth, the baby was taken away from me and put in her crib beside my bed at night time. I just thought it was frowned upon."

As William Hague was forced to vigorously defend himself against allegations about his private life last night, he also revealed that his wife Ffion had had a series of miscarriages, the most recent having happened over the summer break.

In a statement issued by Mr Hague to end speculation about the nature of his relationship with his special adviser Chris Myers - who later resigned - the Foreign Secretary gave a candid account of he and his wife's struggle to start a family. He said that Ffion, 42, had 'suffered multiple miscarriages' and was 'still grieving for the loss of a pregnancy this summer'.

'He'll get picked on!'
'He looks like a girl!'
'It's so scruffy on a boy!'

These are just a few of the comments levied at my seven year old son in the past couple of weeks, and throughout his life, really. All because he has (and always has had) long hair.

William's mane is his crowning glory. It is thick, wavy and abundant, and the most gorgeous shade of blonde. Admittedly, without a careful blow-dry and regular brushing throughout the day, he can bear a passing resemblance to a very woolly sheep nestling in a haystack, but on the whole, it is long and flowing and lush to look at.

A 15-month-old baby has cheated death after a lorry ploughed through a warehouse adjoining her home, missing her bedroom by just a few feet.

Taryn Alcroft and her parents, Andy and Ruth, were sleeping in their home when the incident happened at 3.26 this morning.

Mr Alcroft heard the vehicle smashing into the building adjacent to the house, and immediately phoned the emergency services.

A mum who lives in a three-bedroomed house with 10 children and her partner is asking for a bigger house.

Donna Harrison, from Bradford, says she has been asking social landlord Incommunities to allocate her family a bigger house for five years, to no avail.

Donna has six children and also looks after another four, one of whom is her live-in partner's daughter.

She shares a bedroom with a son and daughter as well as her partner, and told the Daily Mail: 'I can't cope. There's no room in the house for the kids.'

'We have taken on three extra kids and no one's given us any help. When people have got 10 kids they should knock two houses through for them.'

Come early September, hundreds of thousands of four-year-olds will head into primary school for the first time and by 3pm, hundreds of thousands of their parents will be desperate to know how it all went. Were they the life and soul of the playground or did they even just talk to someone? Did they eat their lunch or sit there daunted by the dinner ladies? Most of all, were they happy?

When it comes to getting feedback, school is starkly different to nursery. Whilst nursery staff typically dole out key info at picking up time - from food consumed to activities enjoyed - schools don't. The idea now is 'no news is good news' – they'd call you if there was a serious problem but other than that, you'll have to wait until parents' evening (the first one is usually around half term) for any notable comments.

Sexism is alive and kicking in the classroom, says a new report.

A study carried out at Kent University suggests that primary school teachers, 90 per cent of whom are female, are unwittingly holding boys back by reinforcing gender stereotypes in the classroom.

Boys are expected to conform to a more 'feminine' style of play instead of being taught how to play the games they prefer responsibly, it says.

According to the report, which questioned 238 children, boys are far more likely to be perceived as 'silly' in class, and are more likely to be reprimanded for refusing to 'sit nicely like girls'. They are also seen as more prone to indulge in 'schoolboy pranks'.

The report suggests that the attitudes of female teachers may be perpetuating low expectations of boys' academic achievements, unwittingly encouraging girls to work harder by letting them think they are cleverer.