Pets

[MinesALatte]

Bit of a strange one but how have your pets reacted to your baby?

I have a cat, he’s six years old and without sounding like a crazy cat lady - he has been by my side through a lot of bad times, he is beyond special to me. Now, whenever friends and family have come round with their children, he hides, he does not like children so I am worried how he’ll react when a baby comes along. I’m hoping he’ll know it’s ours and react differently, but it does concern me. He is crazily intelligent so I do hope the latter, but curious to hear stories ☺️

@eveningreflection it's definitely the hardest thing I have ever had to do, we have managed to rehome our youngest to a friend close by, our oldest we are struggling with as he is just not suitable to be around small children and he just isn't happy anymore he has started to pee on DS clean clothes and his bed, we have a rehoming centre coming to collect him in the next week or so

I have two very clingy, nervous male cats (brothers). One is a cuddle bug and slept on our bed every night while I was pregnant. The other is super nervous and only really tolerates me. When we brought our son home from the hospital they sniffed the car seat, then ran away and hid. Like others have said, they took a few days to come around to being in the room with him, and a few weeks to come close.

The nervous one refuses to be touched by anyone other than me so he just ignores the baby and steers well clear. The friendlier one is absolutely desperate to be friends with our DS, but the baby is now 9 months, mobile and grabby. He’s got hold of a tail with his little death grip a couple of times, although the cat hasn’t lashed out in retaliation which is good. One of my earliest memories is being scratched on the face by our family cat so I’m pretty keen to avoid this for DS, trying to keep contact extremely supervised until he’s able to understand ‘gentle hands’.