New kitten, or not?

[MissCardew]

I'm after a bit of advice please. I would really like to get a new kitten this Spring but am not sure if it's the right thing to do for our circumstances. We have an 8 year old cat who is very affectionate and happy and I worry that a new kitten might change that if he resents it (he can tolerate the older cat next door who occasionally makes his way through the cat flap but a kitten is a whole other ball game!). We also have a 4 yo DS - he is able to be gentle with our cat but is excitable and noisy so the cat doesn't particularly like to be around him.

So I guess my questions are: do you think a kitten and a 4 yo is a bad idea (obviously we wouldn't leave them alone together etc)? And do you think an older cat and a kitten would be able to get along?

I'm of the persuasion that unless your existing cat has a demonstrable hatred of other cats then introducing new ones generally works out ok eventually. Kittens are a bit of a pain though, with their annoying (to an older cat) kittenish ways.

Perhaps a slightly older female, who is known to like other cats, would be a better bet.

It sounds doable to me. When we got our first 2 kittens we were living in my mother in laws flat, without my mother in law but with my brother in law, with their two older cats. One was about 7 the other about 9. Tommy, the older was (has gradually mellowed in old age) very very grumpy, swore a lot and generally a very difficult cat. Salem the younger was mega affectionate, dribbled a lot, plagued by illness and they didn't really get on. In hindsight bringing kittens in wasn't the best plan on paper. We did though.

We kept them apart for about 2 week, the boys knew they were there, we let them mix gradually. Salem fell in love, his health went though the roof, and no one had seen him so happy and healthy, he protected the girls, slept with them, washed them. Tommy swore at them, swiped every now and then, but came to tolerate them in general. Salem died about 10 months after this, but the last months were the happiest of his life and don't regret getting the girls at all.

This face says it all.

We were advised to get a pair of kittens because they will play together and leave the older cat alone. Our old boy actually loved the kittens sleeping with him and keeping him warm.