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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

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Original poster

Cat attacking baby

21 replies

AtomicSquash · 13/01/2021 20:57

We have a 9 month old baby who is mad about our 7 Yr old cat. Unfortunately the cat is not so mad about him. The cat has probably swiped at the baby around 5 times. Drawing blood a few times. DS doesn't do any particular to provoke these attacks, just being excited to see him mostly. Sometimes he's not even particularly close to him. The cat will just flip out with no warning. Sometimes he does it with us too but obviously we can cope with the odd scratch. He has got worse since the DS was born. DS isn't mobile yet, but once he is I have no doubt he will be following the cat around all day and so I obviously worry that cat will get more irritated and lash out more.

I am looking for some advice on what we should do. Have other people dealt with similar issues? What did you do? Should we be considering finding the cat another home?

OP posts:

Hawse · 13/01/2021 21:10

Have you tried Feliway? We have a 7 mo old, similar, who LOVES the cat. Our cat is pretty chill, but even then, he wasn't thrilled with her - so we have a Feliway plug in to help keep his mood steady. Also, I wonder if you could create a 'no baby' area for the cat (esp. when your baby is on the move). That way the cat knows it has a safe place and can go and chill / be less irritated. If the cat is really starting to get stressed out more - which is sounds like the scratching might be a sign of - I would talk to either a vet or a cat rescue and see what they suggest. Clearly you have to do whats in the cat's best interest (and sometimes rehoming is), but also remember that all he knows is you as his family and he was there first. This is a shock for him too. So maybe with some time you can all learn to live in harmony. But thats just my opinion, I would seek some other help.

Wolfiefan · 13/01/2021 21:13

Cat sounds scared. You need to keep them apart.

Santaiscovidfree · 13/01/2021 21:15

Consider rehoming.
Your baby at 7 months will still be cute and should find a new home very soon..
Then dcat can get back to it's dc-free life...

Just keep supervising... Before long your dc will catch on to leave it alone...

Santaiscovidfree · 13/01/2021 21:15

*9 months!!

Kakiweewee · 13/01/2021 21:24

I think your cat is probably giving signals that they're uncomfortable or wanting baby to back off, but they're not always blatant, so can be easily missed.

I'd keep baby and cat separate for now, either by having loads of escape routes for cat to get up high away from baby and see if that helps, or if it doesn't with baby gates or separate rooms.

As baby gets older they'll learn to treat cat with the respect it needs and cat can learn to associate them with pets and treats, until then it falls to you to prevent any scraps between them.

ivfbeenbusy · 13/01/2021 21:26

No you shouldn't rehome. 🤷‍♀️ Your cat was there first. It's on you to supervise their interactions at all times. I didn't leave DD alone for a second at that age with our cats. We have 4 cats but 1 in particular was very excitable and interested in playing with her. Cats don't always retract their claws when they play but it isn't their fault.

I would sit with DD if the cat wanted to interact with her and probably only stopped that when DD was over 4 years old and could trust that she knew the boundaries we'd taught her.

If your son isn't mobile how are they coming into contact with each other? Is the cat approaching him? Perhaps the baby toys look interesting?

Or are these unprovoked "attacks" that come out of no where?

If the cat gets too boisterous you pick it up and put it out of the room. It will soon learn if it wants to play then needs to behave itself

Honeyroar · 13/01/2021 21:29

Is your cat an indoor cat? It sounds like it needs space. Can you have a child gate so the cat can get away from the baby to a part of the property and not be followed?

Fluffycloudland77 · 13/01/2021 21:32

Cats aren’t aggressive though, their defensive and the baby doesn’t know any better.

The cat needs a safe space away from the baby.

Vinorosso74 · 13/01/2021 21:41

Does your cat have anywhere high to escape? Cat tree or shelves? You can get shelves especially for cats. This can give a safe space to get away.
Do you give the cat some positive attention on his own when your baby is in bed? Granted our cat at the time was super chilled but when DD was little and she'd gone to bed one of us would make sure Dcat had some fuss and lap time without a wriggly/noisy small human.
Cats Protection have some behaviour info on their website which might be worth a look and try.

81Byerley · 13/01/2021 21:45

Rehome the cat, for your sake, the baby's sake, and the cat's.

Original poster

AtomicSquash · 13/01/2021 21:50

Thanks all, good to hear rehoming isn't necessary. The cat isn't an indoor cat, he has his own catflap and is in and out a lot. It is difficult keeping DS and cat apart as the cat is generally very friendly and affectionate. They don't have any unsupervised time together. But the cat will go up to DS a lot and rub up against him and purr. Which obviously DS loves, but he isn't allowed to touch him as I would hold his hands. But the cat is so unpredictable. With me one minute he can be sitting nicely next to me on the sofa loving being stroked, the next he is clawing your arm off. Once he went for DS from half way across the room, DS was just plonked on his bottom on the floor excited to see him and bam the cat flipped and launched himself at him.
The idea of a separate space for the cat could work and I will give that a bash. Will also look at the felliway. Cant do any harm. Thanks!

OP posts:

MamaDane · 13/01/2021 21:57

My twins "assault" the cats whenever they see them. One cats flees from them, while the other basically tolerates the abuse (until it gets too much, then flees). The second cat we were so scared would scratch or bite the boys, as he does when we stroke too close to his belly and tail area, but so far (they are nearly 1 1/2 years) he's been exceptionally tolerant of them. It's like he knows they are babies and don't know what they are doing.

Honestly, if our cat did scratch the kids not just once but more than once, I would start thinking about rehoming. I wouldn't want to have 1) a baby that kept being hurt, 2) a stressed out cat, and 3) having to worry about future scratches.
It's just not a healthy living situation.

StacySoloman · 13/01/2021 22:00

I wouldn't keep an animal that attacked my children! Can't believe you've let this go on for so long.

We're not talking about a toddler getting scratched when they manhandle a cat, but a cat attacking a non-mobile baby.

Fluffycloudland77 · 13/01/2021 22:07

Pretty sure 9 month olds aren’t immobile though, they’ve got grabby little hands and no idea the cat will scratch if it feels threatened.

Neither is in the wrong and some cats will put up with it but others wouldn’t.

catscatscatseverywhere · 13/01/2021 22:24

@81Byerley

Rehome the cat, for your sake, the baby's sake, and the cat's.

Do you really think it's easy to re-home 7yo cat?

Honeyroar · 13/01/2021 22:42

The cats not attacking an immobile baby, it’s scratched an almost toddler who harassed it at every opportunity. Cats aren’t like dogs that could bite and do serious damage, they tend to scratch and run.

StacySoloman · 13/01/2021 22:46

@Honeyroar

"DS isn't mobile yet"

"DS doesn't do any particular to provoke these attacks, just being excited to see him mostly. Sometimes he's not even particularly close to him."

"Once he went for DS from half way across the room"

Where are you getting that an almost toddler is harassing the cat, @Honeyroar?

Honeyroar · 13/01/2021 22:48

First line of the OP’s first post. The child’s overexcited to see the cat. The cats not mad about him etc..

StacySoloman · 13/01/2021 22:50

@Honeyroar

First line of the OP’s first post. The child’s overexcited to see the cat. The cats not mad about him etc..

The non-mobile baby

An excited baby might be noisy but it's not chasing the cat around.

Honeyroar · 13/01/2021 22:50

Once a cat is spooked or worried about something it goes into run/defence mode. One of my cats is the same about my little dog. Because the dog has spooked it a few times, so it acts as though it’s going to spook it every time it sees it..

StacySoloman · 13/01/2021 22:52

Even more reason to rehome the cat! You can't keep an animal that might attack your baby if he is noisy or excited.

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