Getting pets ready for baby

[achi]

After ready today's check in thread the vast majority of us seem to have cats and/or dogs. I'm curious to know if anyone is doing anything to get your animals ready for baby? Or if you're a STM if you did anything with the first and how your animals reacted?

We have a 5 year old golden retriever who loves kids, so I don't have any worries about her but our 7 year old cat seemed to be pretty weirded out by my friends baby whenever she was visiting with it. I'm assuming because she doesn't see this baby very often it's not familiar to her so it would be totally normal for her to be a bit skittish but if there's something I can do to help ease the stress for our fur babies I'm all ears.

[nextbigthing]

I know my cats are not going to be thrilled, especially at first. They are used to a pretty quiet calm house.

But, we have a good sized house, so they have lots of places to escape to, and a friend of mine told me that the best thing you can do is to try not to shoo them away if they come around and to try to pay attention to them like you normally would, let them check the baby out, sniff, etc.

That's what we plan to do. They'll adjust, I don't think it will be a catastrophe

[dearprudence]

Check out this blog. 

babiesandbeasts.blogspot.com/2009/02/bringing-home-baby.html

This used to be the bible of pet and baby advice from The Nest.


We went with a lite-form of that, but we're really lucky to have a dog that's too stupid to cause much trouble (as in, he won't even eat droppings on the floor unless he gets the okay, and pre-kid we had open topped garbage cans).

For us the big things were

- setting up the furniture/swings/etc. so that he could sniff them and get used to them.
- Making sure to keep up his pre-baby activities after he came home (so he still got walked twice a day, a tired dog is usually much better behaved)
- Make sure he had his own space at all times.  Even now our toddler knows that if the dog is on his bed, he's off limits.  And no chasing, so the dog feels like he can leave whatever situation he doesn't like.

We allow growling, because it's his only form of communication and it prevents biting.  So we've taught our son that if the dog is growling, that's his way of saying "Hey, I don't like that very much."  and he needs to stop whatever he's doing.

We had brilliant plans of bringing home the baby before picking our dog up from boarding, and letting him smell the baby things. But the day we came home from the hospital there was a sniper on the freeway targeting random cars, so we decided to play it safe and just pick the dog up on the way home and not go out again.  So their first meeting was in the car.  And my dog could not have cared less about the baby.  Wasn't interested in the slightest, just happy to see DH and I.

[achi]

Thanks very much dearprudence, that seems very helpful!

[bakerlady89]

My dog was 3 when dd was born, and he thought he was my baby. I went in the house first, and let him love on me for a few minutes, I let him sniff one of the blankets we had used in the hospital, pls he could smell her on me. After about 5 minutes dh brought in the Baby and our dog sniffed her a little bit but mostly ignored her. After a few days he got used to her, and now they are very best friends.

[christy082]

I read the book Childproofing Your Dog. We've set up all the baby stuff (PNP, swing, etc.) and let her sniff everything and told her she was a good dog while she sniffed. I've let her sniff baby toys too. Sometimes she tries to take them in her mouth but I just nicely tell her "no" and pull them back, then let her sniff them again and praise her when she doesn't try to take them.

She's good around kids, but has never been around babies. She's only allowed in some rooms in our house and not others, so she'll still have her space.

We plan to send a blanket home from the hospital so she can smell it. We also plan to have my husband come into our house first (he's her favorite, lol) once we all come home, so she can get her excitement out with him, then have him have her wait while I bring the baby in.

My main concern really is the dog stepping on the baby, so we'll have to do tummy time in the rooms the dog isn't allowed in. She just has NO concept of people's personal space, and constantly steps on us, lol.

[achi]

Jan 26, 2015 15:05:25 GMT -5 christy082 said:

My main concern really is the dog stepping on the baby, so we'll have to do tummy time in the rooms the dog isn't allowed in. She just has NO concept of people's personal space, and constantly steps on us, lol.

This sounds familiar. Our dog is 70 lbs and things she's a lap dog. Not cool.

[osulori]

Sorry to just butt in, but this came up in my "recent posts" list. We did a lot of this stuff-having my H bring home a blanket and hat the baby had worn for the dogs to sniff, getting the big stuff set up weeks in advance to let the dogs adjust, having me come in by myself first to give the dogs a few minutes to lose their shit with excitement and settle back down, playing a recording of a baby crying at random times to let them adjust to the sound, carrying a baby doll around, changing up the schedule a bit every day (mostly with feeding times). My pit mix still cried when the baby cried for a week or so (which was cute as long as it wasn't 4am), and both were really confused but overall they did really well.

Oh, and I also got a couple bags of Composure dog treats on Amazon. They have calming stuff in them-our vet recommended them to supplement the pit mix's daily Prozac dose (this was not due to the baby, Eddie was a hot mess when we adopted him) and they definitely helped take the edge off a bit more on his more anxious days those first couple of months. Especially if people were coming over since that makes him extra nervous.

[osulori]

Jan 26, 2015 15:17:58 GMT -5 @pennypie said:

My biggest worry is that the dogs go NUTS when someone comes to our house. They bark their fool heads off. And, of course, the minute someone comes in the front door they're fine and happy...but the initial arrival is always chaos. I don't know how to break this habit and I think it will make me go insane if it wakes the kid. Our oldest dog (she's 13) is the worst about it...the doxie just jumps on the bandwagon. I think if we're expecting guests, we'll have to put the older dog in our bedroom so she can't go nuts.

My pit mix does this too.  For a while we would shoo him outside for a second if we saw someone pull up, but eventually we realized AJ would sleep through the dog losing his shit more often than not. Even now, he sleeps through the dog barking at least 75% of the time.  Hope your kiddo is the same!

[kams]

We set up baby things early, and tried to keep their routine the same, but they seemed to transition really naturally. Our female dog was incredibly protective of DD. She would lay in front of whatever swing/rnp/arms that DD was in and would snap at our poor old male dog if he would try to get anywhere close. They really kept away and have been amazing.

I found most important for us was to make sure the dogs have a safe place to retreat to when the baby is mobile. Also, once those little hands are grasping hair, we needed to be hype aware of where baby & dog are. And into toddlerhood, teaching DD how to behave with dogs has been super important.

[Deleted]

We only have cats, but I'm a little concerned about them jumping into the pack and play in our room (which they've been doing at night). So I have a spray bottle of water to help train them off of it.

We also got a gate with a pet door to put on the guest room, the cats have always used that room as their hiding spot (plus their litter boxes and all cleaning supplies are back there) and this will keep DD out of there.

[starburst604]

We have a cat, he's only 10 months old and so far not very fond of kids when they come over but he's not aggressive and he's never met a baby. I know he's going to think all the baby things are new toys for him! He's already had a ball playing in the bassinet my sister gave me (I'll be washing everything).

He's shut out of our bedroom at night though, so I don't worry he will jump in with the baby and her door will always be closed when she's sleeping in there. My last cat tortured me all night long and after he died and we got the kitten I made the the decision that I wouldn't go through that again, so we cuddle with him all day long but at night he has the whole house and we have the bedroom!

[preppy]

There is some great advice in here I will have to remember. My pup also goes crazy when people come inside so we are going to start working on that now! We have 8 months to train her, lol.

[estrellita]

The only thing we've done really so far is keep them locked out of our room at night. They HATE being locked out, so we're trying to get them used to it now. I know they will definitely be in the crib with baby, so I'd like to avoid that if possible. Plus one of them pukes a lot, so I'm trying to avoid him puking on baby things, haha. I told H that before bringing baby up, we should bring in a blanket that smells like him so they can at least smell him first. I know Midnight might freak out because he's super skiddish around new people, and Asher will probably just lick him, haha. I have no idea though.. they're never been around babies. Just older kids. Midnight hid the whole time and Asher tolerated being carried around, so I know he will be pretty good. Hopefully Midnight will warm up to him fast and not be too scared when he's a toddler running around!

[LaceyV]

We set up all the baby stuff and left the nursery door open so our pup could explore. I also would randomly play YouTube videos of baby noises but she could have cared less.

When DD was born we sent home a blanket with her scent on it so Lacey could sniff it, again she could have cared less. Then the day we came home (I had a c section so I was gone a few days) I had my sister take her for a nice long walk first so she was tired and then I went in and loved on her for a few minutes (I am her favorite and I spoiled the crap out of her before DD came along.) Then we brought DD and let Lacey sniff her in her car seat and then I held her in my arms while Lace sniffer her and then she laid down and that was the end of that. They get along very well for the most part, but we got a second dog and Lacey has a little less patience after being harassed by our other dog all day so sometimes if DD is too in her face she growls at her and runs and hides.