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Whether you live in the city or the country, by the time you have become so pregnant that you don’t feel like moving, or later on a housebound mother, you are ready to discover the joy of mail order. It is part necessity and part fantasy (impossibly clean babies, no hint of baby sick anywhere, being pushed along by beautiful blonde teenage model mothers, no sign of bags under the eyes). Once you have rung for your first catalogue, you will become an addict. It is a perfectly normal symptom of shopping deprivation brought about by being too large to undress in tiny cubicles. Fortunately for you, your addiction will be fed forever more by new catalogues from different baby-related manufacturers arriving on your doorstep unasked for. You may tut about the paper wastage, but before long you will be hooked, flicking through the pages to see the latest baby gizmos.

The upside to mail-order shopping is that you can do it when you are pinned to the bed breastfeeding two babies, and you can shop online when the children are asleep. The downside is that once the babies are born, you are unlikely ever to find an envelope and Sellotape to return anything that didn’t fit. My twins are still waiting to grow into their cute Breton tops, bought by mistake at size six years instead of six months.

The best maternity-wear and baby shops

Blooming Marvellous

(0870 751 8944: www.bloomingmarvellous.co.uk)

Blooming awful name but it boasts the ‘UK’s largest range of maternity wear’ and has some good classic items for late pregnancy, such as large linen shirts that can also be worn afterwards. It is a one-stop shop for your pregnancy capsule wardrobe with a growing newborn section. Just steer away from Womb Song Kit (£49.99). Your babies will never thank you, and that money would be better spent at the Gucci of pregnancy wear – Formes.

Formes

(0208 689 1133: www.formes.com)

Formes is the French maternity-wear company where all pregnant mothers would shop if they were rich celebrities. That doesn’t mean you cannot treat yourself to one item there. And if you do buy only one thing, make it a pair of jeans. A pair bought by a friend for £75 is on its fourth pregnant mother, and they still look great. Women who work in the City should only buy maternity wear from Formes, because they can.

Jojo Maman Bébé

(0870 241 0560: www.Jojomamanbebe.co.uk)

Also French, and a little more classy than bloomingterrible-name. Its website is well-organized and easy to buy from. Its denim jeans are cheaper than its French rival at around £32.99.

Brora

(0207 736 9944: www.brora.co.uk)

This company makes exquisite cashmere baby clothes: cardigans (£45), trousers (£45) as well as hand-knitted baby bonnets (£23), baby booties (£19) and baby mittens (£15). One friend who was given a gift box of trousers and cardy loved the feel of her cashmere baby so much that every night for three months she would wash out the top and bottoms and hang them on a radiator for the next day. Some may be horrified at the thought of spending so much on baby clothes, so this is one to be given as a gift, if anybody’s asking. Yasmin Le Bon, who discovered Brora for her children, never hands on the clothes but recycles them into cushions. If it’s good enough for Yasmin…

Beaming baby

(0800 034 5672: www.beamingbaby.com)

This is a totally organic website offering mainly toiletries for babies – natural bathcare, talcum powder and kits for mothers. It also sells some unusual hand-finished clothes for babies made from organic cotton – its long-sleeved ‘bodies’, sleepsuits and babygros are an environmentally-friendly alternative to the bigger stores.

Mothercare

(0845 330 4030: www.mothercare.com)

Unless you are reading this after a major relaunch, Mothercare seems to me to have gone off the boil in recent years with some frumpy maternity offerings and often poorly-stocked shops. Shame when you consider that it’s the name everyone gropes for when they need anything baby-wise. One pregnant friend became so exasperated with not being able to find a shop assistant recently that she stood in the middle of the store and announced ‘I am here to spend hundreds of pounds with you, please can anyone help me?’ She spent £800 at the store and had to return to the shop when the goods were delivered because they still had their security tags on.

When I contacted Mothercare about these general issues of stock and customer service, they replied:

‘We acknowledge that our performance in these areas has not lived up to the expectations of our customers. We have a new and revitalized senior management team in place that is concentrating its efforts on returning Mothercare to its position of pre-eminence as the number one retailer for parents.’

Watch this space.

Not Mail-order but Worth the Schlep

H&M Hennes – Mama Range

(www.hm.co.uk)

The Hennes maternity line knocks spots off the catalogue stuff price-wise. Pick up basic long-sleeved T-shirts and stretchy trousers for a few quid. It is also much trendier. Think Natalie from All Saints rather than Cherie from Number 10. However, as we go to press, the website only offers a store locator rather than online ordering, so you will need to plan a trip.