Introducing your pets to your new baby can be nerve racking. Especially if it’s your first baby. You don’t know how your pet will react and you are praying nothing bad happens. After all, your pet was the “baby” first and you, of course, want them to like the new baby. Every animal is different, you could have a dog that is just so relaxed and doesn’t care about anything or a cat that just lays around and loves cuddles. On the other hand you might have a dog that craves all the attention and gets very jealous of anyone else being near you or a cat that is very antisocial and feisty. Regardless of your animals’ personality you want to be careful when introducing them to the new baby.
We have 3 dogs and 2 cats with all different personalities. We thought we had a pretty good idea how each one would react to the new baby. Oh, were we wrong, haha. Only 1 out of the 5 animals acted close to what we predicted, so you just never know. Oddly enough, our care free and easy going dog, wanted nothing to do with the new baby. She sniffed him a few times and keeps her distance. Our crazy hyperactive dog that is terrified of small children, was immediately protective and attentive to the new baby and is now his shadow and best friend. The cat that we thought would just stay clear of the new baby actually tried to kill him a few times. He would hiss at him and swat at him and we even caught him sitting on him a few times! All of this said because it is very important to expect the unexpected and keep a close eye on your new baby around your pets because you never know what they will do. They have never seen a tiny human before and don’t understand what it is or how to interact with it. It is a learning process for all of them and you.
The first thing we did to start introducing the new baby before he was even here, was showing and letting them sniff all the new baby things. We let them get acclimated to the items the baby would be using, allowing them to get use to them in order to eliminate some uncertainty or fear from the items they are not use to before the baby is in them. The second thing we did was bring home a hospital baby blanket that our son was wrapped in after he was born. I stayed in the hospital with our son and my husband went home to let the animals out and what not. When he did, he brought the baby blanket and let them all smell it. This helped introduce the baby’s sent before actually coming into contact with the actual baby.
When we came home with our new baby, my husband went inside first to calm down the initial excitement from the dogs and put them outside. This allowed us to bring the baby inside with out being bombarded. We put all our stuff down and said hi to the cats before taking the baby out of his car seat. We let the cats sniff and check out the new baby first because once the dogs come in the cats are out of there and we wanted to give them a fair chance to see the new tiny human. Like I said, our one cat just started hissing and walked away but our other cat was all about sharing the love. Then, we let the dogs in, while I was standing and hold the baby to keep them at a safe distance apart until they got out all their excitement. We let them sniff him and told them gentle, giving them praise when they listened.
They quickly realize that things are different, so it is important to keep an eye on your pets after introducing a new baby. They can get depressed or jealous and act in ways you have not seen them act before. Remember to be patient with your pets, this is a big change for them as well and they have to adjust to the new life style. They were the “baby” first so just remember to keep giving them love and affection too. You got this momma!
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