You may feel like you are preparing to leave the house with everything including the kitchen sink but there is nothing worse than being 20 minutes from home with smelly baby and realizing you've left the vital baby wipes on the change table. With this in mind, try to keep your diaper bag topped up and ready to go at all times. Here is our definitive list of what should go in the diaper Bag. Fine tune as you see fit:

• Diapers. Pack as many as you think you'll need and then add three more. Running short of clean diapers leads to the worst kind of public humiliation.
• Diaper sacks. These little scented plastic bags are great for putting dirty diapers in when you're out, but also useful for storing anything mucky - clothes, shoes, toys - until you get home.
• Baby wipes. You can buy 'travel packs', but even more handy - and cheaper - is decanting some of your home supply into a zip lock bag. They seem to stay moist for longer this way too.
• Tissues. A small packet for everything you don't want to use a wipe on.
• diaper rash cream. Buy a second tube and keep it in the bag. You know what your baby's bottom likes so don't leave home without it.
• Baby food. Keep a bottle of emergency baby food and a couple of dry biscuits (sealed in a zip lock bag). Don't forget to throw away any opened but uneaten jars of food.
• Plastic teaspoons. It's a tragedy if you've got the food but not the utensil. Keep a couple of plastic teaspoons in the bag and throw them away as you use them.
• Baby change mat. Happily, most diaper bags come with a change mat.
• Hat. Keep both a beanie and a sunhat to cover all weather options.
• Spare change of clothes. Or two if there's toilet-training going on! There are so many ways that a small child can go through a set of clothes, you'd be a fool not to take spares.
• Sunscreen. Keep a roll-on infant sunscreen in the bag at all times. The roll-ons won't leak and you can spread it across his skin with your hand for complete coverage.
• Small toy and book. Hand these out when you've exhausted all your own methods of keeping your baby entertained and you've still got twenty minutes in heavy traffic to get through.
• Bottle feeding paraphernalia. You can't go far without everything you need to feed your baby. So if you bottle feed, make sure you've got formula, sterilised bottles, boiled water and some method to heat the bottle. Most cafes are happy to help.
• A spare soother. Small people who need soothers are inconsolable if they lose them, so keep a spare or two, in the bag at all times.
• Mom's must-haves. All moms should pack a snack for when exhaustion sets in and the blood-sugar levels suddenly drops, and a bottle of water, because lugging your baby and his diaper bag around all day is thirsty work.