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Original poster

To ask how you keep a 14 month old from harassing the cat during lockdown?

52 replies

Tiredtiredtired100 · 08/04/2020 18:54

Posting here for traffic, mostly. I’m at a real loss as to what to do here. I have a cat, who is friendly but obviously has her limits and will scratch if annoyed. She’s not the type to leave if annoyed either so every time my son is bothering her she stays and let’s him pet her until she lashes out (which doesn’t take long so I can’t always get there before she scratches him). Obviously I keep taking him away to stop this from happening, shutting them different sides of doors etc. but nothing I say or do seems to stop my son from pestering her. He’s started pulling her tail if she’s on the windowsills and just now deliberately dropped a bottle on her head (before I had chance to realise they were both in the room - I turned and saw he was going to do it and went to stop him but was too late). I shouted no (I never really shout) and put him in his cot as I was in his room. Then went to see to the cat, who was fine. As soon as I got him back out of his cot he ran off to find her.
So, what can I do to get him to leave her alone? She won’t stay away and I don’t like locking her in parts of the house, so the solution is to train my son not the cat. But what works with a 14 month old?

OP posts:
CSIblonde · 09/04/2020 02:31

You need to keep going with the no & removing him. Hes getting to the age he understands what's not OK but it'll take a while to sink in. Pulling their tail or swinging by the tail (when he's older & stronger) can lead to spinal nerve damage for the poor cat & lifelong trauma. My cat is still deathly afraid of the teen next door who picked her up by her tail years ago, she literally cowers in fear. If he really has to interact, get him a cat toy on a string for distance & supervise, always, a set play session between them. Also show him by demonstration how gentle any touching should be, toddlers are really rough.

LangSpartacusCleg · 09/04/2020 02:47

How about a specific playtime with the cat and with your supervision? ‘Gentle hands’, ‘kitty likes this/that’, play with a toy and when the cat loses interest, playtime is over and use distraction techniques to move to another activity away from the cat.

And at 2, I would ‘punish’ DC for upsetting the cat. By ‘punish’, I mean removing DC from the situation (as you previously did by moving him to the cot), a very strong ‘No’, short time out, and then business as usual.

LangSpartacusCleg · 09/04/2020 02:48

Sorry, just realised DC is 14 months, not 2 years old.

KarenJones420 · 09/04/2020 02:57

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

maggiecate · 09/04/2020 03:01

Make sure she’s got somewhere high she can escape to that he can’t reach and keep working on gentle hands, firm no and removing him. Gate off a room so the cat can get in but son can’t. If she’s got a favourite spot in a room that he has to be in baby fencing or moving furniture might work to block it off so he can’t get to her -it might be more about containing your son rather than the cat until he’s a wee bit older!

EveryDayIsADuvetDay · 09/04/2020 04:15

Poor cat.
Put child in a playpen or cot whenever he does it -hopefully that, you saying "no" and the cat lashing out might mean the little thug learns eventually.

catinb0oots · 09/04/2020 04:17

@everyday

Cor 'little thug'?

That's a bit harsh. What is wrong with people on here

problembottom · 09/04/2020 07:19

My 15-month-old is obsessed with our cat. I taught her by repeatedly showing her “ahhhh” complete with a gentle stroke. She does this the majority of the time now and I give her lots of “good girl” praise when she does. And I get her to give him treats. If she gets overexcited and grabby I remove her. They follow each other round the house now it’s lovely.

LisaSimpsonsbff · 09/04/2020 08:06

Second the advice on practising lots of gentle hands and moving him whenever he is at all rough or upsets the cat in any way. We've been working on this since DS was about one and he's still not perfect at 21 months, but so much better.

The big problem we have - would welcome any advice on this, sorry to hijack your thread OP - is that they hate it if he shouts or is in any way noisy, but that's much harder to avoid - I move and say no if he shouts at the cats, but they don't like it if he's just noisy in their proximity and that's pretty unavoidable. We also tried really hard to create lots of places they can go to get away from him but find they still choose to be very close to him because they want to be very close to us (and one of our two is also quite fascinated with DS himself).

DontStandSoCloseToMe · 09/04/2020 08:13

Have you got a cat tower? Ours likes to sit on his and observe DS from a distance (16 months), was also do the gentle/kind hands one of us picks up and strokes the cat and the other holds DS and helps him/encourages him to stroke gently. Our cat doesn't lash out he just runs if the noise is too much but maybe because he always has his safe spot. He's likes the top of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom too.

Dieu · 09/04/2020 08:16

Is the roughness a boy thing? My 3 girls wouldn't have dreamt of doing this to an animal, right from the get-go?
Sorry OP, just an observation and not a judgement on your wee boy. My girls were minxes in other ways, let me reassure you!

Zogtastic · 09/04/2020 08:16

You have to make it a no-go area to mistreat your cat. You need to believe that within yourself. You wouldn’t give you toddler a chance to hurt a new born baby or not wear straps in car seat. Your cat needs you to make this a no-go area. In my experience, 14 month olds are totally capable of realising this is if you view it that way. We have many cats and all of our children have never hurt them or physically upset them once. Their noise does upset some of the cats but the cats can easily get away. It gives me the rage when friends’ children come round and view our cats as “toys” where what the kids want trumps what the cat wants. View it this way: do you want your child to learn it’s ok to enforce their will on weaker humans...well, teaching them it’s not ok to do it to the cat helps with that process too. You are protecting your child as much as you are your cat if you teach them now that mistreating others isn’t ok. And it is mistreatment. If you wouldn’t let another child dominate and do things with your child that your child doesn’t want even though it’s just “playing” then it’s not ok to let your child do it to your cat.

LisaSimpsonsbff · 09/04/2020 08:22

I'm sorry but I just don't believe that any baby knew instinctively how to touch a cat gently and appropriately. If you mean they just showed no interest in the cat, or were perhaps scared of touching them, then that's quite different, but babies/toddlers just don't have an inbuilt sense of how to touch a cat correctly - it requires quite good motor skills, for a start! - no matter how superior your parenting is...

I also don't know why people are pompously lecturing the OP on why she must teach her DS to be gentle to the cat when she's asked for advice on exactly that?

myself2020 · 09/04/2020 08:22

Don’t allow him to get close to the cat at all for the time being. with a „if you can’t play nice, you can’t play at all“. after a week or so, let him very shortly and supervised play with her. if he is nice, reward loads. and tell him he did well. treat the cat like a fireplace, knive, carseat. there are strict rules around them, no compromises

LizzieSiddal · 09/04/2020 08:25

Agree with the “gentle play” approach. You need to spend time modelling the behaviour you want DS to use, letting him join in.
As soon as DS sees the cat, spring into action “ahh here’s the cat, isn’t he lovely, he likes a gentle stroke, can you do that, what a gentle, kind boy you are, the cats had enough patting now, oh look at the bird outside/it’s tea time/ etc etc.”

LizzieSiddal · 09/04/2020 08:27

Lisa we got a kitten when DD was 15 mths old. She did learn to be “gentle” with her.

corythatwas · 09/04/2020 08:31

Is the roughness a boy thing?

Nope. My ds would probably not have survived at all if I had left his 3yo sister without supervision.

My niece got scratched repeatedly because she wouldn't leave their cat alone.

LisaSimpsonsbff · 09/04/2020 08:32

What, with no input at all from you? I wasn't at all disagreeing that you can teach it - that's exactly what we've done with DS - it was the 'my children would never have been rough with an animal, even once' comments that annoyed me as they seem to imply that OP's baby (14 months isn't really a toddler, is it) was somehow morally inferior or inherently cruel.

Monkeynuts18 · 09/04/2020 08:32

God people just fall over themselves on this forum either to be vile or to find any excuse to make themselves feel superior about their parenting don’t they?

This is a 14 month old. A BABY. Not a ‘little thug’.

LizzieSiddal · 09/04/2020 08:35

Sorry Lisa, I misunderstood you. Yes of course it took a huge amount of input from us to teach her how to behave with the cat.

TheGoogleMum · 09/04/2020 08:35

I have a 16 month old who loves our cats bit they don't love her. She is grabby and pulls fur, but they have always been nervous cats that run away so she doesn't get chance to upset them too much at least before they escape. I guess make sure cat has places to escape to, and try to supervise gentle handling. I approached the cats while sleepy with DD (they dont run off so quick) and encouraged gentle petting and tell her off and take her away if she grabs and she is getting a bit better (cats still mostly run away if she gets close though)

Dieu · 09/04/2020 08:36

Don't be daft. That's not what I meant at all. I made it perfectly clear that I wasn't judging the OP's son. My girls were just inherently gentle towards animals, and we never had a phase such as the OP is going through. Nothing to do with 'superior parenting' (who's being judgey now?), since it was something in them.

LisaSimpsonsbff · 09/04/2020 08:40

I didn't so much mean you, dieu (though I realise it does sound like I did, sorry - though I don't really know why you commented just to say that you had no experience of the problem?) - it was the 'little thug' and zogtastic that pissed me off.

LisaSimpsonsbff · 09/04/2020 08:42

Also, you say 'gentle to animals' - did you actually have a pet? Because it's completely different if it's just occasional encounters than living with a cat all day every day (and especially at the moment, of course)

Moomin12345 · 09/04/2020 08:44

I don't want to worry you but cruelty to animals is an an early sign of psychopathy. Could obviously be unrelated, just see how it goes as the child ages.