How much physical privacy do you have in your house with small people running around? I ask because it has dawned on me that I have virtually nil. While DH can go and have a leisurely shower or ‘sit down’ loo visit with a golf magazine and the kids don’t bat an eyelid, the moment I attempt to shut the bathroom door, all hell breaks loose. I don’t think I’ve had a poo in peace for nearly four years.

DD always thinks of something essential she needs to ask/wants my help with at the exact moment I need a wee, and joins me in the loo. When she was potty training, she’d sit on the big pink potty next to me when I went. DS always wants a ‘duddle’ when I park my bottom, and insists on hugging my knees. There are some things you just want a minute or two to yourself for, without a small person attached to you or inspecting the toilet.

I don’t want my kids to be in any way uptight about their bodies or what comes out of them, so I’ve always been deliberately relaxed and matter-of-fact about what happens in bathrooms. ‘Everybody poos,’ chants DD like it’s a family mantra, ‘even the Queen!’ Sometimes, though, it would be nice not to have to run and shut the door before they realise where I’ve gone, or to schedule visits to coincide with Balamory or breakfast, or to have a shower without a small face peeking round the curtain shouting ‘mummy wet!’, or a bath without my nipples being tweaked, or to get dressed without my woefully stretchmarked tummy being poked and laughed at.

Somehow DH just doesn’t have this problem. He’s always been very private with the children about bodily functions and nudity and they never question it. He always locks the door  when he’s on the loo or in the shower, never emerges from a bath without a towel, and closes the bedroom door to get dressed until he has his boxers on (apparently described by DD at nursery as ‘big, big boy pants’, much to the nursery team’s ongoing amusement).

Possibly because we had a little girl first, he’s very conscious of not wandering round with his willy out. And possibly just because I’m a mum (and was lucky enough to have two normal deliveries and breastfed both of them for a few months), there’s less of a boundary for me between their delicious little bodies and my big saggy one. Children’s poo, wee and vomit are part of everyday life for me, but for DH having to change a really disgusting crappy nappy is still a major event that requires contorted facial expressions and a measure of protest.

Anyway, have you found a way of being completely cool about all things bodily with your children and still managed to retain or reclaim any privacy? Or do you always seem to have a small person close by if not physically attached when performing your intimate ablutions?