Two kids, one night to survive as a single parent… what could go wrong?

For the past few weeks, we have been trying to get our little cherub to drink formula milk so that his mom has a little more freedom. The first few weeks of testing were calamitous, as our pasty poppet seemed completely repelled by the idea of ​​clinging to anything that wasn't anatomically related to someone. She interpreted our first offers of formula as, "Here's poison to drink." Now, she's giving us the annoyed, yet forgiving response that we usually get from the words, "Is Pepsi okay?", which we consider progress. My daughter's attitude towards me is generally similar. I adore her, but she just finds me agreeable, holding me to the tense ambivalence my wife has for people doing holiday coverage for Radio 2 presenters.

My baby doesn't I don't get many detailed mentions in this column, partly because it seems to be a bit hateful, and I refuse to engage with those. But mostly because his most recent milestones are the ones I covered in detail when my son went through them, and I hate repeating myself. So please just make sure she's started smiling and laughing and teething and can, almost but not quite, sit up on her own. But as we near the end of the "just keep her alive" stage - which I promise doesn't mean we'll stop trying to keep her alive - we've started to spy on a new phase. on the horizon.

So today is the first time I have left to try and support her with my manly charms and frequent use bottle for 24 hours, while my wife goes to my sister's hen house under strict instructions not to send me anxious notes about my progress, since I will only tell her that everything is fine no matter what. I'm fine, but it seems redundant to say that raising a five-month-old and a four-year-old child simultaneously is a challenge and I'm extremely lucky that neither my wife nor I have to do it alone very often. I try to maintain that perspective as my daughter decides she doesn't want to feed herself, at the exact same time my son starts screaming because he has orange juice on his hand. It's 8:05 a.m.

Finally my son's hand is cleansed and a brisk 40 minute walk lulls the baby to sleep. Over the next few hours I get a steady trickle of text messages from family and friends who have not received my No Texts order, worried about caring for a baby who is not fully bottle fed - or from me. I'm considering writing a sardonic reply to the effect that I'm a father of two who is more than capable of fighting over his kids on his own, thank you very much. I'm not doing this because my left hand is holding a screaming baby and my right is on my phone, looking for those padded shirts with fake boobs that daddies can wear.

There you go it's more walking, more moaning, more reluctant feeding and I end up getting both down at 8pm. My phone rings, probably their mom is texting to see if everything is okay. Her message just says she got bitten for bringing white to a chicken. Honestly, would it kill her to ask how I'm doing?

Did you hear Mammy die? by Séamas O'Reilly is available now (Little, Brown, £16.99). Grab a copy from guardianbookshop for £14.78

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