12 sad but true Murphy's Laws of parenting.

The original Murphy’s Law states that if something can go wrong, it will.

As a parent, I’ve learned there is a long list of other Murphy’s Laws that apply on a daily basis. These are the rules that catch you by surprise until you give up and learn to accept them.

1. Small babies will always wake up for a feed half an hour after you have gone to bed.

It doesn’t matter what time you decide to put yourself down for the night, it can even be as soon as they are asleep themselves. But you can guarantee – right at the exact moment you are finally dropping off, their shrieking cries will jerk you awake, demanding you roll out of bed and off to feed them.

2. Babies won’t produce a number two for an entire week, only to release seven days’ worth in one go while you are driving down the freeway, miles from home.

And you’ll have precisely one less wipe than you need to clean up the overflow.

3. You’ll set aside the baby’s naptime to do some cleaning, but then they’ll doze off in your lap and if you even flinch it will all be over.

This is why you should never feed a baby without the remote control within reach.

4. You don’t often wash your couch covers, but the day you do will be the day before your child gets an uncontrollable stomach virus.

Seriously, why do we bother?

5. Your child will HATE the expensive and beautiful shoes that they got from their Grandmother for Christmas and will refuse to wear them.

Until they have grown out of them. Then the shoes will magically transform into their favourite pair and they will insist on hobbling about looking like one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters.

6. Requests from Mummy are met with defiance, refusal and shrieking. Daddy only has to ask nicely once.

Then he will turn to you and tell you it’s not that hard to get them to behave.

7. Sitting down to a delicious hot meal? This is the precise moment your toddler will decide you must help them use the toilet.

I don’t understand how my son manages to co-ordinate his bowel movements with meal times, but it has happened too often now for it to be a coincidence.

8. Kids will drive you crazy from the back seat of the car, only to fall asleep five minutes before you get where you’re going.

Every. Time.

9. Expensive toys always break on the first day.

Cheap toys that make loads of irritating noise last forever.

10. The only time there is an actual request for vegetables is the one day you don’t have any in the house.

Think of all the carrots that have been thrown out over the years...

11. They have 15 hats. They want to wear the hat that you lost at the park last week.

No, that other hat WON’T do.

12. Got a major presentation at work today? Cue the toddler head-cold from hell.

Daddy is away all week. Day care will spot you coming from a mile off and run at you with a thermometer before you have the chance to drop the child, switch off your phone and make a run for it.

It’s no wonder we always feel like we’re on the back foot.

Any other parenting Murphy's Laws?