Okay, here we go. Mums and dads, do you feel a bit of a fraud? Like me, do you raise your kids on the hoof, making it all up as you go along?

When our daughters were babies we knew exactly what to do – because we bought an instruction manual. Yep, an instruction manual. It was called 'The Contented Little Baby Book' by Gina Ford and it told us exactly what, when, where, how and why to care for this funny-looking little alien that suddenly dominated our lives.

To be honest, we'd have been totally screwed without it. Among other things, Gina planned a timetable that, if adhered to, more or less guaranteed a good night's sleep for mum and dad – which feels like a life-changing lottery win when you've been woken up three or four times a night for months.

We can laugh about it now but at the time it was terrible, as Morrissey once said. But hearing the alarm go off at 7am after about three hours' sleep – and then having to go out and do a day's work was sheer cruelty. The high point of the day back then was sitting at my desk and being able to drink a cup of tea all the way to the bottom.

Gina's timetable stated that you MUST wake your baby at 7am – whatever.

Feed her, change her, cuddle her and all that. But come 9am, down she goes for another sleep. And if she cries...then let her cry. Controlled crying I think she called it. And so it went on throughout the day.

But the best part of it was that it all seemed to be geared around the needs of the mother – the reasoning being if mum got enough rest after being split in two after giving birth and having the very marrow sucked out of her while breast feeding, she could cope with the demands of a young baby much better.

Also, Gina's strict timetable built in time at the end of the day (baby goes to bed at 7pm, by the way, whether she likes it or lumps it) to let mum and dad have a bit of time together, sans baby.

To be honest, judging by the furious spleen venting on mumsy websites' message boards at the time, some people loved it while others compared it to a concentration camp for infants. The condemnation on one site was so thunderous in its damnation of Gina Ford that it got shut down.

Anyway, armed with Gina's bible we felt like her guiding hand was on our shoulder and if there was any problem then Gina would see us right.

Won't stop crying? See page 114. Baby won't settle? See page 98.

Fast forward to June 2009 and there's no such luck. The only instruction manual that tells you how to raise girls under the age of 10 that I've ever seen is the one you're reading now – and let me tell you, I make it all up as I go along. In fact, to use football parlance, I'm a hybrid of a referee and a first team coach – and not a very good one at that. When I try and settle disputes between our two charming daughters I can hear, if I listen hard enough, a baying crowd yelling 'YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!'

And they're right. I haven't got a clue. It's all done on gut instinct and what little experience I've gleaned down the years.

But what I know is this – if you give your kids everything they want, when they want, and let them do what they want, when they want, then one day soon you'll have a couple of candidates for Brat Camp.

But if you get them tucked up in bed for 8.30 on a school night, fill their packed lunch boxes with butties made with wholemeal bread, fruit and yoghurt, wash the majority of the gunk off them every day, don't let them stuff their faces with sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks, then you've got a battle on your hands – and if you're losing it now, imagine how easily they'll crush you when they're teenagers. Gulp!

But it's not all bad news, far from it. The way I moan on about our kids every week you'd think they were total hellions. They're not.

They're a right pair of little charmers who could pluck a sparrow from the air just by raising the index finger of their right hand.

Seven and nine are such wonderful ages, anything is possible. They've got their whole lives stretching out in front of them and all you can hope for is they they don't make the same mistakes you did – and if they do, the best thing you can do is keep your trap shut and try not to sound like your parents.