It’s hard to be a dad!

Prince William is finding out what hard work it is being a new father.

Last week he said that looking after baby George was harder than doing a long shift as a search and rescue pilot.

The three-week-old Prince is “beautiful but loud” according to his proud dad.

The relentless routine of night-time feeds means disturbed sleep in those early months.

It’s a shock to the system and nothing can prepare you for it. No baby manual properly explains the washing/changing/feeding/burping/rocking/sleeping/waking and then doing it all over again.

So it’s no wonder that a survey last week claimed that babies lead to a 40% rise in rows among new parents.

It’s the little things that niggle. Whose turn it is to sterilise the bottles, make up the feeds, change the nappy or walk the floor at 2am when baby has a lot of wind and won’t settle.

Remember those days when you barely had time to have a shower? When it took you an hour to get out the door and then the baby was sick all over the new clothes you’d dressed her in?

My son and his wife had their first baby two days after Prince George.

They’re both “neat freaks” who have been used to their tidy little home, designer clothes, meals eaten by candlelight and long lazy breakfasts at weekends.

Three weeks with baby Elizabeth Anne has changed all that.

Mum wears jogging bottoms and socks most days. Dad can’t find the belt he really needs. They eat whenever. They’re dazed by lack of sleep and have forgotten what it means to have a lie-in or watch TV.

Every new parent should have an L plate on their back so the world recognises why they are temporarily a bit hazy and crazy insanely in love with this new person they have created.

You become a parent the moment baby arrives in the world.

But, as Wills is discovering, it’s the demands of those tough and tender first weeks that turn men into dads.