I am in the car park outside the exhibition centre and it is a terrifying sight.

Most of Europe's estate cars and 4X4s seem to have congregated here; miles of sensibly coloured vehicles on each and every side, with hundreds of little yellow warning triangles in the back window.

Which all say Baby on Board.

My wife thought it would be a good idea to buy two tickets for The Baby Show. I steel myself for whatever's going on in this huge and sinister building.

We trudge alongside other couples, some pregnant, some pushing prams with angry-faced babies inside, and get to the doors.

'Are you sure you want to do this?' says my wife.

'Of course!' I say, because I am an excellent husband. 'There is nothing I want more than to go into The Baby Show.'

We nod at each other, fix looks of grim determination, and enter a world of mayhem and noise.

There are women breastfeeding by the door. A toddler is trying to pull an exhibitor's stand down. Couples wearing matching Teletubbies hats. And smug men with papooses talking loudly.

'It's so hard to look smug with a papoose,' I whisper to my wife. 'Yet these men can do it. How do they know what to do?'

'I guess you just pick it up,' she says, looking as confused as me.

There are hundreds of stands, with thousands of products.

Products I've never heard of, from companies I've never needed before. But in here, to these people - the breeders - these companies are rock and roll.

Baby Blooms. Baby Oomph. Baby Planet. Babyboomboom.

BambooBaby. Bitty Plum. Bum Genius.

I am overwhelmed. I recognise nothing. It's like shopping in Aldi.

'Where do we start?' I say. 'What do we need? Why are we here?'

'I just thought it'd be a good stepping stone,' says my wife. 'Maybe start to pick up the essentials ... '

But what are the essentials? And then ...

'A papoose!' I realise. 'I could get a papoose and look smug! And Colin told me I'd need a papoose! He said it was necessary!'

'Colin thinks Nando's is necessary.'

'Oh, and I suppose it isn't?' I say, offended.

Sometimes I wonder if my wife will ever understand me.

We start to make our way to a papoose stand, confident now that we finally have a mission, and taking in more alien company names.

'Chatterpants,' I say, eyes wide. 'Stinky Whizzers. Look - Future Freak. Who's going to want to raise their baby as a Future Freak?'