WHEN she was tiny my daughter thought I was a troll.

I liked to think of myself as a fun dad and knew she had just been read the tale of the Billy Goats Gruff.

Out for a park stroll, I charged ahead of my wife and daughter and hid under a wooden footbridge. As I heard their footsteps above, I hollered in my deepest voice: "I am a troll, fol-di-rol, and I want you for my supper!"

Instead of the cute smile I'd anticipated, my daughter froze in terror, dropping her comfort toy and rattle. And, indeed, it left me equally frightened when, rather sheepishly, I emerged and faced the glare.

Despite that gaffe in my parenting techniques - and, believe me, there were many others - being a dad was fun. I'd come home from work and start playing.

But for mums (or dads) at home, bringing up baby isn't always such a bundle of chuckles. A survey has highlighted the fact that the first year of motherhood can be a lonely place - especially for mums whose partners spend long hours away at work, whose own parents don't live round the corner and whose street is not exactly throbbing with neighbours chatting over the garden fence. And babies are at their most tyrannical when you've had no sleep, your head's throbbing and there are a million jobs to do.

The important thing to try to remember when times are tough is that there are big plusses. Not just the obvious joys of parenthood but the fact that you'll meet other new parents with whom you have something in common.

Friends made then are often friends for life.

(It's just we trolls whom no one wants to play with.)