Cats and Cots

[MM1993]

My cat is literally the light of my life, she's an indoor cat so has spent her whole life (4 years) it really just being me and her. Now baby is coming I'm firstly worried about how she may react, she's never really been used to not being number one 🤦🏻‍♀️ also, I know a lot has been said about keeping cats away from cots as they like the warmth and get in etc - for anyone that will say to just shut her out the room, this isn't an option as she will literally scratch, cry, scream at the door until she is let back in again (my fault for allowing her in since a kitten) she has given me plenty of sleepless nights because of this - sometimes it feels like I already have a child.

Has anyone got any advice as to what they have done with their spoilt pets ?!
Or what I can do to cover the cot ? I'm thinking of getting a co-sleeper due to space, I have seen mosquito type nets can be used but they don't seem to have good reviews - help!

I have the same concern! I've bought just a normal crib for upstairs and planning on shutting the cats out at night (they don't be happy about this!), but instead of a Moses type basket downstairs I've bought one of these:

www.motherandbaby.co.uk/reviews-and-shop/nursery-and-accessories/cots-cribs-and-moses-baskets/inovi-cocoon-bassinet

I'm hoping I'm able to have a nap on the sofa during the day when he's sleeping in the same room in that crib without having to worry about the cats (but I will be a FTM so I'm probably living in dreamland 😂)

It's supposed to be suitable for overnight sleeping too

We've also got an inovi cocoon for the same reason. Baby hasn't arrived yet so I can't really comment on how well it will work but the top is pretty sturdy so I can't imagine the cats will be able to get in to it at all.

I've got twice Siamese and they used to get in the cot many years ago when my daughter was a baby. I put them in the ( heated ) conservatory until she was older

I'm only 8+5 but I worry about this too.

One of my cats is the same, when the bedroom door is shut and we're in there, even with a mini baracade of slippers and towel we pile next to the door to protect the carpet, she'll still scratch at the door. It's been over a year in this house! We got to a point she wouldn't do it as often, but now I'm getting up multiple times in the night to pee, if I open the door past 5am there is absolutely no point in shutting it, she is a pest!

She's 14 now and been this all her life in 6 different houses, where for months and months we've tried shutting her out until giving in because we need uninterrupted sleep!

@Lovethatjourneyforme I've just set up my cocoon. One cat just smelt and ignored it as expected, the cat I was worried about was super interested in it, and climbed on top of the cover and curled up! Obviously we didn't let her stay but wanted to see how she'd respond. Hopefully yours ignore it!!

Just to add - there was not a baby in it! (He's not here yet). Unfortunately I don't think we'll be able to rely on it like I had hoped

We were exactly the same - bought the mosquito net and everything!

I can count on one hand the amount of times the cats have come near DS and he’s four months old.

DH normally has a dirty pile of clothes on the floor and these are way more appealing!

I had 5 cats when ds was born (I now have 6) - they were massively disinterested with him as an infant, mostly avoided him once he was mobile, 1 or 2 of them now sit with him for fuss - ds is 5yo. 1 of the cats did like to sleep in ds' cot, but would soon vacate if I put ds in there - as it happened ds and I coslept, so the cat actually used the cot more than ds ever did 🙄 There was no danger, ever.

I was looking at advice for this today - how funny!

Some fab advice on prepping your cat for a new arrival on www.battersea.org.uk/pet-advice/cat-advice/introducing-new-baby-cat

My 2 year old indoor cat is like my child haha! I’ve been really worried about how he will adapt, but hopefully with the right prep before and helping him keep stress free it will help! Good luck :)

You need to start shutting cat out of the bedrooms you don’t want it in and yes they will scratch snd cry.

When baby is here they will either stay close to baby or disappear away from it.

My cat wouldn’t go near the baby. Took one sniff and was off. Didn’t like the crying.

@CornishTiger they scratch and cry and they don't stop even after months & months of being shut out, and then no sleep when I'm exhausted, makes nausea even worse

We were so worried about this for all the same reasons as you. Our cat loves to cuddle and I was terrified of him trying to get in the cot and snuggle up to baby. I could not have been more wrong. He gave our son a really wide berth for months, and even now keeps pretty clear as he knows it will lead to his tail being pulled!

A couple of things we did that were helpful:

1. we put the cot and the changing table up about a month before due date and put big bits of cardboard on them covered with big strips of double sided tape. Cat quickly learnt that he did not want to be anywhere near that furniture!

1. We started shutting cat out about 2 months pre baby. My husband in particular was dreading this (the last time we’d tried it was years ago and it had been a nightmare) but we found that as he’d grown he just didn’t care that much any more. Think we had a bit of crying for a few nights, but he lost interest quickly. But even if he’d cried for weeks before getting used to it, trust me, that is preferable to a cat waking up a baby you have spent hours trying to get to sleep. Take the pain now!!

I'm not advocating this but my experience was our two cats were Not Impressed by the new noisy small person so steered clear without any input from us... Baby slept in same room as us for all sleeps for first 6onths as per safer sleep guidance so that made it a bit less of a worry.

One of them really liked the pushchair when it had the cosy toes on it though...they quite like DD now in small doses but they were very very disinterested for a long while.

My cat stayed away from the baby but yes I have heard that too.

We got a net to go over the cot but then soon realised the cat had no interest.

In my experience the cat was terrified and went nowhere near the cot if the baby was in it. She would either sleep on the far side of our bed to the cot or in another room. DC is now 2 and cat has just started to sleep in his cot, but only if DC is not in the room.

I know you love your cat and they ar part of the family - but it's still a cat, and you are about to have a real baby. Don't let them in the same room as the cot, it's so dangerous, and very gross to let a cat near an empty cot.

Not really the same but I allowed my dogs to sleep in my room, one has severe separation anxiety. The day I found out I was pregnant they were shut out the bedroom, I had a couple sleepless nights but persevered with it and now they know bed time means they go to their own beds in the hall.

For context one is a small dog that slept in my bed and I knew it had to stop way before the baby comes along Incase she thought it was okay to hop in and sleep with the baby.

I read that a trick you can do to make sure that a cat stays away from a cot is to fill the cot with balloons and cover it with a sheet (before baby gets here). That way the cat will get the fright of his life if he tries to jump in the cot and will likely stay away from it in future.

In general though, I think the cat harming babies thing is a bit of a myth.

My cat and my dd had a bit of a timeshare situation going with the moses basket / cot. If the baby wasn't in there the cat would be. Only one time did he mistakenly get in there while the basket was already occupied and he quickly fled in terror and never made that mistake again!

Probably different as I had older DC when I adopted our cats, but they adapted fine with a new baby in the house, and even chose to snuggle next to him when they felt inclined! Kept their distance when he became grabby and started crawling, but he has grown to be a very gentle and sweet animal lover.

Cats don’t like noisy things that wriggle . My two spoilt creatures stayed well away from DD - I only caught them in her Moses basket with her once and they were at the foot end .

Just to add they much preferred her Moses basket when she wasn’t in it .

Speak to your vet. Ours had some great advice on easing our cat into life with a baby.
We put our baby furniture item up/our early so he could get used to them, and established boundaries bu closing doors and training him not to jump up on certain items.
The baby came home and he was so baffled by the screaming thing... he didn’t want to be around him much. Over time he got used to having the baby around and 2 years later they’re besties. Just make sure you are setting what’s acceptable from early.
We started shutting our cat in the living room overnight (previously slept at bottom of bed) from month 4 of pregnancy. We also ensured he had plenty of spaces he could get away from the baby and had a vantage point to view goings on.

Thank you everyone - I think it may just be a see what happens situation as it sounds like a lot of cats hate babies! 😂 I'm hoping mine is the same.

My cats adored DS from the moment they met him. They weren't jealous and never got on his cot. They didn't sleep in his bed until he was about 6-7 and now they prefer him to me!

I didn't shut them out of any rooms, we did have a cat net for the cot ( at my aunts insistence) but they never tried to get in.