TELLING someone their beloved newborn looks like a wrinkled ball sack or Iain Duncan Smith tends not to go down too well. Here are some things to say instead.

‘Hasn’t she got tiny fingernails?’

In any other context this question would be considered embarrassingly trite but new parents will be so out of their minds with tiredness it will be received as a great wisdom.

‘He’s a big one, isn’t he?’

What you’re really thinking is ‘Christ, how the hell did you force this massive thing out of your privates, you lunatic?’, but don’t actually say that out loud, even though the mother is probably thinking something similar herself.

‘Things are certainly going to be different when she’s growing up’

This inane statement will make you look thoughtful if your new parent friends are a bit dull. However it may spark a rambling conversation about The Future which will be more interesting than more stuff about bloody baby food.

‘He doesn’t look much like you’

This comment will demonstrate that you have spent a polite amount of time looking at the baby, and also create some potentially entertaining conflict around its paternity.

‘If I drop him, will he bounce?’

Both an interesting theoretical proposition and a sure-fire method of having the baby taken away from you instantly.