dog and newborn

[becca95louise]

I have a 10 month old staffy and an 18 month old daughter And I'm 24 weeks pregnant with my son. I got my puppy when my daughter was around 9-10 months old and they clicked. My dog is great, house trained, brilliant with my daughter. Not so good around other people she gets way to excited and other dogs is ridiculous. We're taking her training back to square one with that though. My question is will I cope? What advice can anyone give me from bringing my new born home to a dog? Sometimes my dog can be a bit careless with my daughter (knocks her over) but my daughter doesn't care just gets up and carries on. My dog is used to a boystrus (not sure how to spell it) toddler but how will she be with a delicate newborn. I don't want to have to put her in the crate for my new born to get tummy time. Advice?

Well in simple terms you may not want to put her in the crate for your newborn to get tummy time but you will have to.

Dogs and children are a wonderful combination when managed carefully - hours of fun, some great life lessons and lots of love :) However, any dog presents a threat to newborn babies, and in the case of a dog who knocks toddlers over I think it would be silly to allow her to be loose in a room where a tiny baby is having tummy time. Furthermore, you can only supervise so much, and while you're guarding your newborn from this boisterous dog what will your toddler be doing?

I don't mean to be a party pooper but I've been through the baby and toddler stages with my own children, my dogs were older and calmer and I still found it a challenge. I used stairgates and a travel cot to keep the dogs and children separate all the time.

Have a look at

www.liamjperkfoundation.org/

Not to scare you but because it's a brilliant website with fantastic information and every parent should read it.

This site

familypaws.com/resources/

has some great resource too.

Good luck - your dog sounds like a wonderful girl :)

I'm planing on having a lot of new born in the sling but also will have the playpen set up from day one so baby can be in there and dog will hopfuly not feel too pushed out.