Anyone got any tried and tested suggestions on how to introduce beloved pets to a new baby?

[DawnAS]

We are having our first baby in around 6 weeks and wonder the best way to introduce her to our beloved 3 year old labrador and our 6 year old bengal cat...

Has anyone got any tried and tested suggestions? A friend of mine put the baby on the floor in her car-seat when they got home and let their two Cavalier King Charles dogs just sniff her. Our dog is a little bit lively and excitable to do that.

Really don't want them to feel pushed out either...

Any advice gratefully received!!

im going to watch this with interest as i am still waiting to for my cat to come around to ds. ds is 14mo

One thing I read about and tried was to use a tissue or similar and rub the cats cheeks/face/head area to pick up its scent and then rub this on things like the car seat so that when the cat sniffs it, it has a familiar scent.

Certainly can't do any harm.

Hi. When ds1 was born, we had a dog. She was 4, I'd had her for 3 years, she was used to being king of the castle and I was a bit of how it would go.
When dp left the hospital, he took a blanket the baby had been wrapped in and let the dog sniff that so the baby wasn't a foriegn smell iyswim.
I also treated it like if I was bringing a baby home to my toddler. I made dp carry the baby in so I was free to greet and fuss over the dog after being away for a few days.
Keep the baby above the dog at all times, i.e. change nappy on sofa, not floor. This will show the dog the baby is higher up in the pecking order
Don't make the baby out of bounds, but obviously be careful about contact especially if dog is very lively
I'm sure more will come to me
HTH

Thanks for your tips. I'm watching this thread with interest too as I have two rather large dogs and a posse of pussies!

May sound silly, but have you thought about getting a doll to 'practise' with? You know, hold it sitting on the sofa so the dogs learn they can't just jump up and they get used to seeing you 'care' for someone else?

These are all brilliant suggestions, thank you so much. Glad this thread may help others aswell!!

Littleboyblue, especially keeping the baby above the dog - hadn't even thought of that - brilliant!!

xxx

Also, just because my dog was very boistrous(sp?) and lively, I did quite a bit of behaviour work with her during my pregnancy, in the hopes that she would adjust to slightly less attention.
For example, when I came home from being out for however long or being at work, when I went in, I stopped greeting her straight away. She used to jump all over me the minute I stepped through the door, so I started ignoring her, no eye contact, no taalking, no touching, I didn't even push her down, just got in, took shoes and coat off, put bags down, got myself a drink, put the telly on and got myself settled and once she had settled down calmly somewhere, I'd call her over for strokes and things. This way, she wouldn't be all over me when I was trying to get the baby out of pushchair and settled iyswim. I even went to the stage where I'd go to the mirror and say hello to myself if there was no one else at home. I think the key os to let the dogs know that they are at the bottom of the ladder. No matter how horrid that sounds, everyone else in your house, you, your dh/p, your dc's etc are more important than they are and get greetings and attention before they do.

Littleboyblue, absolutely know that we need to do that, but that one we will find REALLY hard!! But you're absolutely right, we need to persevere.

I also know that it's almost the "being cruel to be kind" situation. When DH comes in from work, she's always waiting for him at the door and he says hello to her, then the cat and then they leave us alone so he can give me hugs and stuff. That order obviously needs to change. I think maybe he needs to say hello to me, followed by Jelly (as our bump of a little girl is currently known) from now until she is born and then say hello to the animals. Because we haven't had any DC until now, the animals have really been our lives so it's going to be a big adjustment, but better now than later!

You're such a font of knowledge - thank you!!

Hi
I don't know how my little dog will feel(little yorkshire terrier) as she is nearly 2 year old and since having her from a puppy she has always been my baby. But now total shock i am having a baby, i am worried as she gets VERY jelous as i was holding my friends 2 year old a few weeks ago and she went to go for her as the little girl was pushing the toy into her mouth and she didn't want to play. Then she got up between me and the little girl and my dog tried to push the girl off my knee, ears back being very cautious and really clearly wasn't happy about me making a fuss of anyone else. Even if me and my partner are having a cuddle she has to be in the middle of us to part us as she gets jelous. She chases my son and his friends out of the lounge when they come down for a drink. She is terrible but seems i am the only one she will listen to. She grawls at people and knows if i see or hear that sher will get a telling off and sent to her bed. After a while she comes to my legs and gives me kisses. As thats her way of saying sorry. I love her to bits and no way will i get rid of her, no for anything but i don't want to have to be worried about leaving baby and dog in the same room as she is such a loving dog, part of the family xx

Hi Tiaxx31,

Well hopefully some of the suggestions on this thread may help you...

I am the same in that I would never get rid of our dog or cat, but our dog is not at all aggressive. She's more playful and does have a tendency to think that everyone is there to play with her - she LOVES people coming around. I'm sure with a little bit of patience she will be great with our daughter.

Sounds like you may have your work cut out though... If you don't get enough advice from this thread, maybe you should have a chat with your vet as there are many animal behavourists out there that they could recommend. They will have loads of great ideas - Good Luck!!

xxx

Both times we took our dog to the hospital so that we all came home together in the car, and I know this sounds strange but we also made a a fuss of him, made sure that we had qulaity time with him as well, so he wouldn't have his nose put out of joint.

I used to let my dog lick sniff DS1s used nappies.

It seemed to work.

When we had our DD my DP took home a blanket the baby had been wrapped in and left this in the dogs bed overnight. (Do be careful there is no blood on the blanket as it can cause an unspayed female dog to have a phantom pregnancy, I found this out the hard way.)

When I got home DP held baby in car seat while I gave the dog a lot of fuss and then we changed around, once she had settled we put baby in the car seat on the floor for the dog to sniff and were very careful not to be to PFB and push the dog away as she would have seen this as a bad thing. We then went about our business as if the baby had always been there. 1 year on we have had had no problems in fact my dog now runs to greet DD and just sniffs us when we come home.

FFS, I just typd out the longest message and my laptop died!!!!!!!!
Summary, DawnAS I don't know anything at all about cats. You really need to get dh to greet you first. No matter how much the dogs love you, in their eyes, they are more important to dh than you are. I guarentee you this is how they are feeling.

I got my dog after a few m/c and she filled a void in my life, she was my baby. I loved her more than anything in the world and she would be by my side until death parted us. Honest.
She lived with me above my pub so was around me all day in the bar and came and went as she pleased. When dp got in from his ob, she'd get in the middle of us when I went to greet him. She'd jump on the sofa inbetween us and push me away from him, she was my dog fgs!!
She did really well with the baby, I was so pleased and a bit suprised tbh. She was so gentle and calm around him, even if he kicked at her or pulled her ears, never an issue.
When ds was about 10 months, he learned to crawl, so now he was on the move, she couldn't really escape him. I then got pregnant again and she started distancing herself from me. The we moved into a first floor flat so she couldn't get outside whenever she wanted. Then it got very hot. Then ds kept hitting her and while she was ok for a while, I found it quite difficult to seperate them for any long spells because she'd howl. No good in a flat. In the end, she started growling at ds. He was hitting her, she felt under attack, that simple. She had to go. No other waya around it. It was her, or ds. I couldn't risk the possibility f something happening (not got eyes in the back of my head), and I would rather he go while I could still hold fond memories of her.
It got to the stage that I was telling her off for growling at ds, when she wasn't actually doing anything wrong, she was protecting herself against danger.

There are no grey area's with dogs. Everything is very simple. Someone goes to them before you, they are more important than you. They eat before you, they are more important than you. They jump on your furniture without being invited, they are showing they think it's teir sofa. They poo in your house, they are showing you they'll do whatever they like, and are disrespecting your house. Never let them see you clearing up their pee or poo, it puts you right at the bottom of the pecking order.

This message sounds alot harsher than I intended it to by the way. I hope I have helped and that you find a way to all live together. We didn't. The reason is that when the dog showed she was fine around the baby, I got lazy. I softened up on all the rules I'd put into play through the pregnancy and I started letting her get away wth things to make my life simpler at that moment. Please do not make the same mistake.

Hi Littleboyblue and thank you for your message. That's really sad about your dog, but I can see why you had to make the decision that you did.

I really do appreciate your message so don't worry about it sounding harsh. We know we have made mistakes with Tilly (our lab) as she is our first dog and even though we read all the books before we got her, we didn't follow through in every situation.

We don't have any problems with her messing in the house (luckily), even from when we first got her but I do think she sees herself as more important than both DH and I and I think that's the area we need to concentrate on. When we moved house in December, we stopped her getting on the furniture and she is only allowed upstairs now when invited as our house is soooo much bigger than what we were in before so we feel that she doesn't need to be coming upstairs. She is also no longer allowed on the sofas, where she was previously and she seems to have accepted that very well aswell.

But we will definitely start working on the pecking order. Luckily labs are supposed to be amazingly good with children and she's brilliant when my nieces and nephew come around. I actually caught her lying under the coffee table with my 4 year old niece the other day, my niece had her head on her stomach and they were both asleep. Amazing since Tilly hasn't been brought up with children. If I'm honest, I'm more worried about Tilly feeling left out than her doing anything wrong to a child, I'm sure she wouldn't. But like in your experience, you never know and it's something that we need to watch.

I really do appreciate your post and will heed your warning... I hope your house is a happy one now!!

xxx

Hi all, found this thread very interesting as am due in July and we have 4yr old female Border Collie. She was with dh before I met & married him, but fortunately he has always been v strong re pecking order and she knows v well that she is bottom of the heap! One v helpful tip I have been given is to practise walking out with her with the pram, before dc arrives. She must learn to walk behind the pram, rather than pulling out in front of me which is what mostly she does now. This is something I'm going to start doing over the next few weeks. Dh never taught her to "heel" because they always went places in the car! I realise I'm going to look a right twit walking around with an empty pram and huge bump, but it's worth it to be able to take dc & dog out together