The first baby is a big old wake up call. I went back to work two weeks after giving birth and took my infant Mateda and everything I needed for her day with me (that included my mother). I was lucky in this instance, my employers were the BBC and I was a regular screen-face on a prime-time fashion show for many years. Some may say that was unlucky... I would have been replaced instantly if I wanted a few months off, and who can say if I would have returned for the following series the next season? I saw my situation as fully advantageous however and of course fairly unique. A typical day would need me to express milk at midnight while reading and writing scripts to be faxed overnight, up several times during the night before a 5am alarm to prep and pack for an 8am departure. Earlier call times required earlier alarm calls to deliver the three hours of morning prep. Leaving the house like a pack-horse with nappies, baby sling and car seat, and at work permanently jigging/rocking the baby while I wrote and learned my lines for camera or interviewed a variety of creatives, are two very strong memories. I became adept at breast-feeding many times during the day while working on live consumer shows at the NEC, at London Fashion Week and on live and pre-recorded studio shoots and location shoots, but when I couldn’t break away my mother had the previous night’s harvest to calm the screaming infant on set. If you return to work early and want your child to receive the huge benefits of human milk, you’ll need to factor in clothing changes as milk leaks from the body, infections and fevers for yourself, and feeding or changing your baby in hard to find or out of the way places. I travelled all over the country with my first child and there were no nappy changing facilities on trains in those days so I had to do it on the floor in the only toilet cubicle. Ahh... Happy Days.