Introducing Your New Baby to Your Old Babies
This guest entry was written by Marlena:
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I recently had a baby in February and while it was one of the most joyous experiences of my life, I did have some hesitation about becoming a parent, because I am already considered “Mom” to two fur babies at home.
My two cats, Chewbacca and Fizzgig were my world before my baby arrived. I didn’t want them to feel left out or that they were being replaced. So I made sure that either me or my husband were always paying attention to one of them if the other of us was tending to the baby.
Some books say to bring the cats something of the babies so they can get used to their smell. This is a bunch of horsecrap. The cats don’t care WHAT the baby smells like. They are going to hate it no matter what. My cats did at least. The best way to introduce the baby into the house is to just bring the baby in and let the cats give him or her a quick sniff before you yell at them for jumping in the crib. My cats avoided the baby like the plague for the first month and have since moved to cautiously sniffing whenever the baby is asleep and not moving a lot.
Just be sure to pay lots of attention to your fur babies and don’t forget to check on their food dish once in a while, because a new human baby will take up ALL of your time, and sometimes cats don’t always let you know when they’ve gone without food for two days. Change their litter box, and don’t scream at them when they jump up on the bed, especially if they’ve been doing this their whole lives, and suddenly with the baby they aren’t allowed into their old haunts.
Do make sure to keep your baby’s toys that resemble cat toys out of reach because they WILL disappear from the baby’s room and under your bed.
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[image: Marlena Hall; thanks, Marlena!]
Tags: baby, Cats, Dogs, pet care, pet-pictures, Pets, Pets onlineRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Cats, Dogs, Pet Pictures, Pets, Pets online
2 opinions for Introducing Your New Baby to Your Old Babies
Peggy
May 2, 2008 at 3:05 am
I LOVE that photo. I hope if I get a second cat they will get along that well.
Heather
May 5, 2008 at 11:22 am
Isn’t it adorable? Our first two got along really well for a couple of years but the female went nuts and won’t have anything to do with our male now. I wish they still got along as well as Marlena’s!
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