Going away on holiday is the last thing on your mind when you’ve just had a baby. But, fact is, there will probably never be a better time. I’m not talking about straight after the birth. Of course, no one wants their first stop after the maternity ward to be Luton Airport at five o’clock in the morning. But once you’ve been home for a few weeks, and both you and the baby have got the hang of the whole feeding-changing-sleeping routine, it’s actually the perfect time to take that family roadshow out on tour.

The thing is, a lot of new and soon-to-be parents (and here I’m thinking specifically of fathers) view the whole post-baby period as an amorphous blob of time, during which one’s sole purpose in life will be to service the requirements of the new arrival. As for one’s own life, that’s put on hold.

Clothes-wise, for example, you might perhaps buy yourself something cosy and dadsy like a pullover, but you wouldn’t feel right showing off a dazzling new suit to a partner who’s in a tracksuit dotted with milky sick. In the same way, it would be insensitive for a new father to breeze in the front door and slap a pile of glossy travel brochures down on the kitchen table. However, by the time a baby is three months old, everyone’s in need of a change of scenery. After all, if you’re going to be up at 3am rocking a baby on your shoulder, it might be nice to look out a different window for a change.

Besides, taking a baby on holiday doesn’t actually cost anymore. Up until the age of two, you can take a baby on all forms of transport completely free of charge. Although your child doesn’t actually get a seat, the chances are that on a train the other passengers will give you a wide berth, and you’ll get one by default. On a plane, of course, they’ll ask if they can move away from baby mayhem!!

Which is, as it happens, a mistake, in that babies are scientifically proven to make less fuss at 30,000 feet than toddlers; I’ve still got the bruises from where my three-year-old daughter tried to climb up my ribcage through more of the middle section of a transatlantic flight. And that’s not just during the journey that older children make their objections known. Over the age of four, children have plenty to say about the place you’ve brought them on holiday, and you can treble that for teenagers. Outside, the azure sea may be glistening and the golden Mediterranean sun may be shining, but nothing brings the clouds down on your day quicker than a 15-year-old with the sulks.

By contract babies don’t get homesick, or embarrassed by their parents; they don’t moan about the lack of other children their age at “the stupid resort”. Babies don’t miss their home routine, because they don’t actually have one – not one they know about, anyway. It’s us parents who pretend we’ve introduced set feeding and sleep patterns.

As for exposing them to foreign food, the great thing is that if you’re breastfeeding your baby, then they have a travelling germ-free bistro, although the milk might be a bit more garlicky if you’re on the continent. In the average British tea room, you have to deal with the tutting and chorus “well, really” when Mummy clamps junior to her nipple, but when you’re in a country where they speak a foreign language you simply can’t understand what people are saying when they mutter “I wish she’d do that somewhere else” in Serbo-Croat.

Unfortunately, the post-birth period - this brief, glorious interlude when you can lug your compliant offspring around Europe or even the world and park their carrycot by your moonlit taverna table – doesn’t last long. Soon your baby will be speaking, and instead of looking dreamily into your partner’s eyes as the suns sets, you’ll be dealing with tragic-faced toddlers pushing foreign-tasting food around their plate and onto the foreign floor.

But in the precious few months before your baby learns to say “I hate it here”, you have a window of opportunity. My advice is – jump through it.