IT'S GOOD to be writing this. It means I'm not watching telly. A month ago telly had become more than my window on the world. It had become almost my entire world. Mummy's little helper used to at least be a drug (valium, in case you are wondering). Now it's a soap . . . or a television psychologist like Dr Phil. And I love Dr Phil, not in the passionate sense but in the everything will turn out all right if we can all just use a bit of common sense sort of sense.

As a SAHP (stay at home parent . . . like a WAG but less Gucci and more goo) I fell into the trap of getting my child to the point where he could hold his own bottle and play with a toy for half an hour. Not enough time to write War and Peace or even clean up (well probably enough time for that but who wants to? ). So I would heave myself into my Homer Simpsonesque groove on the couch, flip on the remote and lose my soul.

I know the schedules. I would start with Dr Phil at around 11am, working my way through bits of This Morning (which blatantly goes into the afternoon), Loose Women at 12.30, then an hour or two of Mash or Frasier until Oprah nestles her generous behind into her own sofa at 1.45 . . . the most regular time slot, you can rely on her.

And so it goes on through snatches of Will and Grace, Friends and The OC until Ready Steady Cook! . . . which should motivate one to haul ass into the kitchen and make something yummy for dinner but instead reinforces my feelings of inadequacy. How can that chef take two mouldy potatoes and dog food and turn it into five delicious dishes in half an hour? Yet they always manage it. I, on the other hand, have a fridge full of good food, none of which goes together . . . a bit like my wardrobe.

This is when the self-help programmes grip me. What Not to Wear helps me feel badly about the way I dress. The Dog Whisperer quietly taunts my inability to stop my dog from pulling on the lead or leaping at people in creamcoloured trousers (no wonder I never wear anything nice). How Clean is Your House? crops up after lunch leaving me in fear that Kim and Aggie would appear on my doorstep berating me for my unswept floors and fast deteriorating bathrooms.

At this point you are wondering about my poor child but I must add here that during those endless winter months we all came down with a series of colds and flus that had the household resembling a 17th-century plague house. All the poor little mite could do was snuffle into me as I coughed over his shoulder without worrying about infecting Richard and Judy, encased safely behind the screen if not from each other.

It was a rough time; though not as rough as the time just before I had the baby and was on maternity leave. At that time I still considered daytime TV a luxury, as opposed to how I now think of it . . .

as my unremitting mental master.

As I flipped through endless channels (Lionel Richie's All Night Long seems to be played all day long on at least two music ones) I discovered Discovery Health.

The programme had one of those schmaltzy names, like 'Baby Ward Bliss'. The whole day was "Birthing Day" on the channel and every half-hour programme was a documentary on giving birth.

The whale I thought I had seen at first was actually an incredibly large woman having a home water birth. Her other two children were running around the house and her meek-looking husband was shuffling around on the living room carpet trying not to get in the way.

The documentary cut between a pre-birth interview with the mother . . . next to her we could see her husband inflating a huge blue paddling pool in the middle of their living room . . . and the disturbing pictures of her lashing around in her plastic oasis while her little boy ran in and out of the room wondering why they had a paddling pool in the middle of the living room and how come only mummy could splash around in it.

An animalistic howl would emit from her every few minutes, her head thrown back. Hunched hubby was running back and forth to the kitchen boiling up hot water and filling the pool. At least that explained why films always have all that boiling up of water when a woman is having a baby.

After ages of this, the midwife arrived, took a look and said, "Ah no. Sorry, you've got ages to go yet. You may as well get out."

The poor woman heaved herself out of the water and we, the TV audience, caught view of her full bulk from every naked angle.

I thought birth was supposed to be beautiful thing?

My aunts, grandmother, greatand great-great-grandmothers were all midwives. None of this prepared me for my reaction to 'Oh Boy, It's a Boy!' etc. Once it was on and the women were writhing around in agony. I couldn't switch it off. Even when I tried I found I was chained to the sofa, locked into this deeply personal situation with women I had never met and babies I would never know.

In the past months I have endured other torturous programmes like Animal Cops . . . who make the RSPCA look like lily-livered kittens compared to their American tazer-gun toting counterparts. There was also a very upsetting moment when I switched on the Afternoon Show.

The resident chef was making something that required highspeed whisking. Lots and lots of highspeed whisking. I swear they tried to shout over the thing, singing its virtues whilst we at home only heard a grating mechanical whining that seemed to last half an hour. No, honest, I kept flicking back to see if it was over and it never was. At least that didn't leave room for the intelligence-insulting competition questions like, 'Bing Crosby dreamed about A) a White Christmas, B) a Black Pudding or C) a Pink Elephant?' Or 'Is an Orange A) orange, B) yellow or C) magenta.'

Whew! It's a tough one for the sleep-deprived mummy brain.

They might as well ask, 'Are you, as a member of our audience, A) unable to move, B) mentally deficient or C) a complete moron.

When you start to consider picking up the phone to QVC for that pretty ornament priced at an unbelievably low 300 titled "Plastic Girl Selling Balloons to Plastic Clown" you know your answer.

The real irony of my otherwise sad, sad situation was when I finally broke free of the chains holding me to my TV screen and started living real life again, including a bit of work. It was then that I was asked on to the Seoige & O'Shea programme to talk about bluffing.

Ha! It was bluff enough to pretend I had been doing something with my brain for four months.