Cats and babies

[PurpleCurtain]

I'm not a cat person but we have one because DH loves them - on the condition that he is the one that looks after her! Worked fine for us in the past, but now we have a 4 month old DS in the house too. I'm wondering what others do in terms of the extent to which they keep their babies and their things apart from their cats?

In particular, we have a playmat/ play gym thing that we keep in the living room for DS that the cat used to ignore but has now started walking all over it and rubbing up against it. Every time I see this I stick all the washable bits in the wash but I'm struggling to keep up! What should I be doing - not bothering with washing it? Moving it upstairs every time we leave the room / DS isn't on it? Try something to keep the cat off it? I'm conscious we give him tummy time on there, so he does regularly lick it!

As much as I'm grossed out about it, I guess by the time he crawls there's not much I can do to stop them being on the same floor together?! Which probably means I need to start doing more than just hoovering our wooden floors!

We don't bother tbh. We're letting her stroke the cat now to, teaching her to stroke gently and not grab (long way off but starting early, she's 6mo). Cat has been caught curled up in her car seat a couple of times and on her play mat. When I remember I put the something in the car seat to block access and fold the playmates over on itself at night but I rarely remember

We have carpet so can't do anymore than hoover. Imho it's good for their immune system!

Cats aren't anymore covered in germs than anything else in your house. Aside from keeping litter boxes away from crawling babies who would like to dig in the 'sandbox' you don't need to keep babies and cats apart. Just supervise them for the safety of both parties, so grabbing babies don't hurt the cat or get scratched if they try it. Lots of modelling of gentle hands and kind stroking instead! Nominally it's suggested to wash your hands after touching pets, before you eat or touch your mouth/face, but honestly how many cat owners do that? I have a couple of cats and have ended up with fur in my mouth on more occasions than I can count, it's just something to get used to if you live with a cat - they are part of your household.

And yes studies seem to show that children who grow up with pets have less allergies, so that's a plus. Contact with the pet seems to give their immune systems more practice, so less likely to overreact when they encounter pets later in life.

Watching a relationship (in time) develop between your dc and dcat will more than compensate for a few hairs! We have always had dcats and no dc has been harmed in the nurturing of such a friendship!!

I did however wake up to a gift of a dead field mouse this morning next to the pram in the hall... When this happens I just get rid of the poor creature and spray with disinfectant /sanitisation / anti bac spray.

Our dd is nearly 3 months, we shut the cat in the living room at night now, previously he was able to sleep wherever he pleased! Apart from that we don’t do anything in particular, obviously we would shoo him away from anything of dds if he was curling up in it!

Honestly, don't worry about it! Children who grow up around pets are less likely to suffer from allergies.

Our cat loved the play mat and they shared it. The baby treated him as an extra toy! We removed him from her moses basket when we find him in their (she's not in it at the time) but don't wash the sheet straight away. We use a lint roller to remove cat hair.