Teaching 13 month old to be gentle with animals

[TashieWoo]

Good morning, just looking for some guidance on how to teach my 13 month old to be gentle with our pets without telling her off as she is still little and loves them, we just need to foster a nice relationship before she starts walking. I know this is basic and I should know, but DD is my first and I want to know what has worked for you all more experienced mums 😊.

Her general way of interacting with any object is to pat them, but as she gets older and more excited, this is getting a bit stronger so she’s patting things quite hard sometimes, whether it be a table, her toys, our faces, the cat or the tortoise. She does also like pretending to kiss them, so she is gentle too. We say ‘gentle’ to her and “stroke them like this” and stroke them, but she hasn’t got it yet. Will she just learn to stroke them in time as her motor skills / senses develop? At the moment the animals are excellent with her but I want them to be friends in the future as well. I don’t think what she is doing deserves a firm ‘no’ just yet but I don’t want to get to that stage if possible

Thanks in advance x

What animals does she have regular interaction with? Honestly at that age they don't really understand what you are telling them - my twins are 2.5 nearly and it wasn't until nearly 2 that I let them have regular interactions with my cats (and family's dogs) as it wasn't until then they could understand about standing still, hold your hand out, gentle pats/strokes

You can’t right now.

I have a similar aged child. Our young toddlers have no idea what ‘gentle’ or ‘nicely’ means. Putting your pet in that position where they will get hit/pulled will give your pet anxiety and make them reactive.

I body block between my pets and baby, don’t leave them unattended and use lots of baby gates. My pets have safe spaces to go to. When her understanding is better and she has a concept of ‘gentle’, we will practice with plushies. This won’t be for another year or so.

I don’t let her touch the pets at all

Dogmeetsbaby is a good Instagram to follow.

Model what you want her to do, so say "like this, stroke, gentle" and stroke the dog/cat or hold her hand and stroke it across the pet. 13 months is very young but this is what I did with my DD.

If I couldn't distract her from chasing the dog (the cats just went upstairs for peace) then I would put the dog out so they were separate or I would give her a dog toy for them to play with together. She is 27 months now, but I've been doing this for a long time with particular success around 16 months onwards when she understood more.

It's right that they don't understand a lot at 13 months but they do copy you.

If she is doing what you know is "the wrong thing" to an animal, then OF COURSE you tell her NO, separate them immediately . For her own safety.

If you keep on wet gentle parenting that will force the animals into some ungentle perfectly natural animal response to pain, a perceived power challenge, pestering by lowly pack member.

Hard scratch/kick with claws out by cat.. Scary snarl, growl snap by dog . Then a bite, a grab, and savage shake. So predictable.

YOU are the adult, parent and pet owner, solely responsible for your baby's safety so step up NOW.

Think of their eyesight; scars, the number of children killed every year by family pets behaving like animals. Because their parents didn't use common sense.

A "no hitting" and moving her away would be what I'd do at that age if she was hitting a cat. Obviously I know she doesn't mean to, and isn't being nasty or anything, but it's not fair on the cat, or her if she gets scratched. She won't understand "stroke gently like this". I wouldn't be firm or cross or shouty about it, but I would say no and move her.

I used to encourage DD to 'pat pat pat' then if she got too enthusiastic I would say 'NICELY' very firmly and show her myself what patting nicely meant. If she hit or did anything else to hurt or frighten the cats which she did from time to time, I would say a very firm 'no! We don't hurt the cats.' As she's got older I've been able to explain why. At 13 months old though I think you're best just keeping them apart as much as possible.

I didn't let DS anywhere near the dog at that age. Now he's 2 he is sometimes allowed to stroke gently, he's never in the room with him unsupervised. He has a toy dog for practising having a pet dog. He pretends to take it for walks, pick up its pretend poos, and put them in the bin!

One of our cats was fine with our daughter while she was mastering the art of the "face scratch". The other wasn't. She would generally just stay out of her way. She'd happily be in the room but she'd move out of the way if our daughter got too close.

We taught her with cats in particular, to hold you hand out and they will come to you, which she did.

My daughter when she was about 3, managed to stroke and face scratch like we can and my cat knows this now and will go up to her now.

They do get it at the end. I do definitely think it helps to encourage the animal to come to them.

I found teaching when calm and away from the pet was most effective. When DS was about 10 months old I taught him to "touch gently" and "stroke gently" with a velvety curtain, basically by demonstrating stroking, pairing it with the same words and praising him for doing it nicely.

Once he was doing this reliably, I would bring him over to the cat, hold him on my lap with the cat on the floor and prompt him to "Touch DCat gently" then let him pat the cat once or twice (gently), give him lots of praise and remove him before he got overexcited and tried to squeeze it. Anything non-gentle and I would say "No" and remove him immediately. It's a very controlled interaction which maximises the opportunity for reinforcing the behaviour I want and minimises the chance of upsetting the cat.

That said, this is my in-laws' extremely docile and playful cat who I was confident would tolerate being touched and who enjoys playing in a non-contact way with DS. My grandma's elderly cat I generally just keep DS away from as she doesn't really enjoy playing and doesn't want a kid bothering her.

She will pick it up in her own time. You are doing the right thing by modelling what ‘gentle’ is. My son is 14 months now and has a good understanding already.
We got there by giving lots of praise when he is gentle so that he knows it is good to be gentle. We showed him how happy it makes us to be gentle (to ourselves) and I think this translated to how happy it makes the animal to be gentle & as well as saying how kind he is for being gentle.

A bit strong @2bazookas but I take your point. I am not a Sarah Ockwell-Smith style gentle parent but I would like to be a respectful parent and to teach my daughter in line with her developmental stage. There is a big difference between someone like me and some irresponsible lowlife who lets their toddler play with an XXL Bully that they got off Facebook.

Thank you all for the replies. I do keep her away from the animals the vast majority of the time and she is never unsupervised with them, and they have plenty of their own baby-free spaces. She has just started crawling properly and if she crawls towards one of them she is picked up and pulled away, as I don’t want her to go to them. If she has an interaction with them it’s always when they’ve come to her.

I will just carry on with the modelling and hopefully it will sink in in a few months, consistency is key! It’s a great idea to teach her away from the animals with some material too.

You need to physically show her what you mean when you say gentle.

Practice on you first, take her hand and stroke your face with it saying gentle gentle. Then get her to do it to you, do it herself etc. If she hits your face (mine went through a phase of this!) Take her hand, stroke gentle and say gentle etc.

When she's got the hang of it, do the same guiding her hand on the pet. If she hits, take her away. Toddlers respond much better to being told what to do (e.g. gently) than what not to do (e.g. 'dont hit')

Appreciate the pps posts about separating them all the time but if you have a pet it's just not possible so I believe it's best to teach them what you want them to do. DD Got it pretty quickly. It's also helpful in other scenarios e.g. if she tries to grab flowers, saying gentle means DD will gently stroke them instead of destroying them! She still gets to interact, no negative consequences.....not wet parenting 🤨