Bringing a New Baby Into the Pack: Pets and Babies

  Bringing home your new bundle of baby-ness is the best feeling EVER—but how will your pets react? Will they take this new thing so well?

It appears I have been planning and prepping practically my whole life to be a mom of a person-baby as I have reared many [x 10589] furbabies. :) They teach you responsibility: food, water, shelter, LOVE, poop & pee, cleaning up poop & pee, maintaining their health, testing your patience, etc. (I know pets and babies are very different and require different STUFF, but as far as caring for something that depends FULLY on you for EV-ER-Y-THING-UH is BIG. My pup is 11 years old and he is a forever-toddler: SNEAKY.

 In our current household situation, we have 5 cats and a dog [yup: 5, 1]. We somehow became the animal rescue hub of the neighborhood. Word must have got out. Each one has different personalities, and “isms” that I had to consider when bringing baby home:

WHAT ‘THEY’ SAY TO DO 

 (You know your pet best and can know what degree of prep you’ll need to do. Some of these are more involved than others.)
• Make sure your pets are in GOOD HEALTH and SPAYED or NEUTERED (this will minimize territorial issues—and generally good pet ownership practice!)
• Carry around bag of flour or doll and get them used to you coo-ing at it (weird, just do it) and not them 100% of the time.
• Sign up for training/obedience classes
• Have friends or family members with babies come over to get them used to the noises and smells (oh god the smells— all of them! Good baby smell (yay!) and baby poo smell (not yay!).
• Set up baby things beforehand: the swing, the bassinet, the toy box
• Cats love cribs. Make sure to keep the nursery door shut and/or discourage them from hopping in. Aluminum foil can work, as can a squirt bottle. Best bet is to keep the door shut.
• Along those lines, I read somewhere about a couple who put up a screen door on the nursery while the baby was little. Cool idea!
 • DO NOT scold or ignore the pet when s/e’s around the baby. This is where the acting out can begin. The pet feel like the baby is a rival. Do your best to reassure the pet that you still love him, too! (Extra treats works wonders!)
• Let the pet sniff baby. That’s how they do things in the animal world. Sniffin’ = “Hello, and you are…? Aaaand, now I’m bored. Off to go eat my Greenie.”

WHAT WE DID

(Our pets don’t have aggression issues, so we didn’t have to go overboard, but we tried to anticipate their reactions.)

• We let them in the nursery while we were in there (doing prep and organization), and they had to leave when we left.
• We put out the stroller and swing so they’d get used to those things being around. Zeke insisted he help with the safety inspection.
• Croppy had to start sleeping in his dog bed and not with me. The “dog bed” is a folded up queen-sized down comforter, so… yeah. ;)
• The Hubs brought home one of the baby’s hats from the hospital so they could get used to his smell. [They didn’t give a single hoot. Not a-one!]
• When I brought the baby in the door, I put the carrier down and gave Croppy some pets and boo-boo-foo-foo puppy talk. He then sniffed his new bro, said “hey”, realized he didn’t have any food to offer, and was back to me.)
• We do our best to maintain the routine (it’s not as hard as it sounds! Food, litter box, etc.)
• Give them plenty of love and let them be-bop around as usual. We let them be pets! If you are nervous, THEY will be nervous and can act a fool.

MY EXPERIENCE 

I was a little worried about how our little furbutts would take ANOTHER little addition—none of them are dangerous, but I didn’t want them to be overly anxious. When I brought the baby in, Croppy barked his usual “someone’s at the dooooooor!” and thought it would scare the baby. But the babe just sat there—I had to remind myself that he’s been hearing all the barking and general raucous in our house for 9 months—he’s used to it!

Even with all of their issues and “isms”—they are doing FINE. I was most worried about Croppy and Jack. Jack HATES change, and usually develops some condition. He has FLUTD, so we have to monitor him. He also freaks out into a giant poof-tail-spaz at the drop of NOTHING AT ALL. But he has been uber-duber lovey-dovey. He will come visit while I’m nursing the babe and just be… himself, lookin’ for some good pets (shocked). He is usually very standoffish to new people; most visitors don’t even know he exists! Croppy is just his normal self, too: still underfoot, constantly snuggling up on me. But he gives us space without even asking. Now, Boggy is another story. She is still young and the last furbutt to join our pack. I was very pregnant, and very hormonal when we rescued her and her littermates. The plan was to find them all homes, but I got very attached to her—she was my surrogate—my stand in. So, she stayed :) But she is a wild gal! We just have to keep an eye on her when the babe is hanging out on the floor in his play gym. You never know when she’ll come haulin’ through (for reasons only beknownst to her).

The main realization we have made is that: They have all accepted the baby as an extension of me. Our home is abundant with love.

BOTTOM LINE 

Give it time!! When you bring a new animal into the home (which I have obviously done many times!) you have to give the pets a buffer week or two or three! BE PATIENT! Don’t be hasty in deciding that you pet “has to go” because things aren’t going so smooth: if the pet starts acting out… peeing, whining, being constantly underfoot—it’s because they are STRESSED. If you suddenly feel like the pet is too much work (well, that’s an entirely different subject that I have a strong opinion on—so I won’t go there today) remember that they were there first and do deserve a fair chance to acclimate. Just give everyone—peeps and pets—TIME! You know your pet(s) best. Most of the time you can prepare them accordingly. We did minimal preparation and things just worked for us. I was convinced that they knew. Yes, we do have a TON of more things to do around the house (dipes and litter boxes and trips outside), but we expected it.

OTHER THINGS TO NOTE REGARDING PETS AND BABIES 

• Preggos: Be aware of toxoplasmosis, a bacteria in cat litter. Have someone change your cat’s litter while pregnant. If you don’t have anyone, use gloves and scrub-a-dub dem hands, grrl!
• Babies and children that live in homes with pets generally have fewer health issues.
• Kids love pets. :)
• Pets tolerate kids :)