The helpless blog of a first time dad: My wife’s appetite is ‘shining’ example of how pregnancy can change you

She likes her beauty sleep more than she likes her food, which means she has always been happy to skip breakfast before heading out in the morning if it earned her 10 minutes extra in bed.

I believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day so battle lines were drawn in our house most weekday mornings, first in trying to get her out of bed and then to consume something before she went off to work.

I have been known to chase her down the road with a cereal bar or the slice of toast she’d only taken one bite out of. I’m sure we were a source of constant entertainment for our neighbours.

Those were the days.

I still run to my wife with food but she doesn’t do anything to get away now, and that’s not because her running speed has been reduced to a bit of a waddle.

The planning of the feast begins at 6.45am as soon as my alarm goes off.

“Crumpos,” grunts my wife, which is not a casual morning greeting we’ve picked up from a foreign holiday in Peru but my wife’s way of placing an order for crumpets.

“One or two?” I’ll ask, almost out bedevilment because I know she’d have three if she could. I don’t get an answer, just a limp wrist ushering me out of the room and to the kitchen while she buries her head in the pillow.

I’ll return to her ten minutes later like a worker bee serving its queen.

“Mmm… Crumpos,” she’ll say again in a more satisfied tone, rising from the bed and snatching the plate off me like an escaped convict who hasn’t eaten for days. The plate is then handed back to me seconds later with just the residue of melted butter signalling that there was once a plate of food here.

If it’s a weekend she’ll suggest the aroma of a bowl of porridge will help attract her downstairs quicker than me shouting that we need to go shopping. That and a pack of crisps.

After grazing her way through the rest of the morning she then welcomes the arrival of lunch. For this she has a sandwich, two bits of fruit, a babybel, another pack of crisps, a yoghurt and a chocolate bar. This isn’t always enough so she goes to the bakery near where she works and battles the birds and assorted vermin for whatever they’re tossing out.

She has a craving for cherries at the moment so she’ll stop off at the Marks & Spencer’s store on her way home to buy some. This is typical of my wife, who has identified one of the most expensive fruits on the shelf to have a craving for. She was never going to crave a pack of Asda Smartprice Bourbon creams.

Once home she’ll have a bowl of soup to “keep her going” before I get home an hour later to start cooking the evening meal (I used to be a chef and enjoy cooking so I tend to do the majority of it).

The other day, however, I was off sick with a case of man flu so I started on the meal before she got home.

After putting her key in the door and smelling food, she tried to burst into the kitchen to find out what was cooking.

But the kitchen door hit the door stop that was positioned just behind it, leaving the door ajar enough for her to stick her head through like Jack Nicholson’s “Here’s Johnny” scene in The Shining, and with a similar manic look in her eyes as she scoured the kitchen looking for things she was going to eat.

There are many odd changes during pregnancy that I don’t think I’d considered when we started this journey. Mouth ulcers, pain in the hands and wrists, increased nail growth, the fact that my wife doesn’t always want the heating on full in winter.

The rise in our food bill is probably the most pronounced but you won’t hear me complaining.

Becoming a dad for the first time – and having a child with the woman I love – will feel like having my cake and eating it.

And if my wife still has an appetite for breakfast in the mornings after the birth it will be the M&S cherry on the top.