WITH two children under my belt, and a gaggle of assorted nieces, nephews and godchildren, I thought I was a dab hand at dealing with babies.

They eat, they pee, they poo - they even sleep sometimes - but they don't do an awful lot else. I always reckoned I could handle most of what the little critters had to throw at me, be it a Duplo block to the head or a projectile vomit down my favourite dress.

But after the weekend, when some friends came to visit with their bouncing baby boy, I began to seriously question my right to call myself a mum. It seems that everything I ever learned and stored away under Baby Handbook in my brain is not only out of date but, in some cases, dangerously so.

How my two ever made it to double digits, I'll never know. I mean, I didn't even have a "Baby On Board" sticker for our car.

I have long questioned the purpose of those yellow diamonds you see in the rear windows of every Honda CR-V tootling around town. I suspected they were simply a tool for proud new parents to boast of their latest addition - they certainly don't make anyone slow down or think twice about ramming the car in front in case it wakes a sleeping child.

Now, after all this time, I've learned they are actually a safety device to alert the emergency services to the presence of a baby in case of a crash, and practically the law in new parenting circles. And to think I always assumed the baby's crying would be a giveaway.

Nor did I have such a thing as a Pee-pee Teepee. This nifty cone-shaped device pops over the baby's bits during nappy changes (boys only, obviously) to prevent random spraying. I can't imagine what I did without one of those. Used a tissue, I suppose, or risked losing my sight.

Feeding is another area where I seem to have lost touch. It was always my understanding that baby progresses from milk to rice, then develops a love of fruit and veg, until she gets her first taste of chocolate and pureed parsnip loses all appeal.

These days, timing is everything. No food at all before five months, no dairy or wheat before six, no honey before a year and all sugar to be treated as poison.

I remember feeling horrified at my mother-in-law's tales of dipping her baby's dummy in brandy to get him to sleep. Would my habit of slipping my babies' Chocolate Buttons to keep them quiet get the same reaction now?

So many conversations over the weekend made me realise how long it's been since my two were babies, and how parenting practice moves on faster than fashion. Did you know you can now take your little one to yoga classes or teach him a secret sign language that only babies understand?

Did you know you can even take him to exclusive cinema sessions, where presumably they turn the volume up to drown out the babbles and cries? I had to wait four years before I could see a film, for goodness sake, and then it was Toy Story 2.

Several times over the Bank Holiday, I found myself slipping into that hugely annoying habit of saying "when mine were babies" before offering some outdated advice, only to be met with a smile and a look that said "we'll do it our way, thanks."

But it was good to see that some things never change.

I couldn't help smiling to myself when our friends pulled up on the drive, their car packed to the rafters and the roof box brimming with half the contents of Mothercare.

It was only an overnight stay