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This is the last bit about us surviving with a new baby, all that happened between his 6 to 12 months. You can read about the first two months here and 2 to 6 months here.

When Eric was 6 months old, we had another lot of visitors – Rob’s parents arrived from overseas and stayed with us for a month. This case was even tougher to handle than my mom – by 6 months I was a pro, knew exactly what my baby needed and was opposing to pretty much every advice they tried to offer. What I really disliked about the way they treated Eric was how they wrapped him with kisses and hugs. They were literally wearing him around their necks like a fur collar and he clearly didn’t like it. It took me a lot of self control to keep quiet.

To be perfectly honest I didn’t trust them with my baby. They hadn’t had little babies around for a very long time and weren’t trained to think of baby the way I was. The way they lifted the pram, almost tipping it over, with the baby not wearing safety harness filled me with fear. Every time they were pushing the pram I had to jump and stop them when somebody backed out of the driveway right in front of them. They couldn’t wait to give him bred or cookies when was fully breastfed and were dreaming about offering him some candy. Brrrrrr.

Anyway, we survived that too. I didn’t loose my breast milk supply (although I was worried that those stressful days could cause it) and once the visitors returned back home – we returned to our peaceful routine.

To make the most of the period when Rob wasn’t working full time he began to look for a house for us to buy. It took him 3 months to check out various houses, compare them and choose our future home, which is really good compared to the average 8 months for working couples.

We bought our home and moved in when Eric was 10 months old. The plan was that once we are settled, Rob will start looking for a full time job and I will start looking for a nanny to help me with Eric. I needed to work more hours and still wanted to keep him at home – away from bugs of childcare and in familiar place.

So after a couple of months Rob found a job and was supposed to start in a week. That meant that I had exactly 7 days to find a nanny – which surprisingly I managed. It was pure luck more than anything else, but it happened and she was great. After we spoke over the phone and she came in for a chat for 15 minutes I canceled all the interviews I had scheduled with other nannies, because I knew – she was The One.

The story goes on and on, but I think that by now I have proven my point: a couple of clueless first time parents can have a baby, learn, survive and raise a happy child – even if they live alone, even if there is no one to ask.