Dogs and babies??

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bex1984

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I am 4 months pregnant, and have Stan, who is a 2 year old terrierist who has owned me since he was 12 weeks old.

I'd really appreciate any top tips from people who've done the 'dog and baby' thing as I feel like I need to be prepared and have plans in place to make sure all goes as smoothly as possible.

I keep worrying about practical things, like how you pick up poo on walks whilst pushing pram/having baby in sling...and how to push a pram and hold onto a pooch (are any particular types of prams best for this??)?!

Stan is generally mega child proof - I obviously wouldn't ever leave him alone with a baby/child, but he usually LOVES kids and is very good around little ones.

Any tips/advice gratefully received...thank you!
 
Hi....without wishing to be intrusive what is your home set-up at the moment? Is it you on your own? You and a partner? You and older children/other animals/other family members or any combination of the above?
Also, how ‘locked on’ to you is Stan? Do other people feed him/exercise him/care for him or are you his sole provider?

I think you can guess where this is going....if there are other family members, try to increase their involvement/bond with Stan and play down yours. Yes, it is very hard, but in the long term it will pay dividends.

Get hold of a life-size baby doll, dress it up and get Stan used to seeing you carrying it around and paying it attention. Decide on the house rules now and start implementing them before the baby arrives. For instance, will Stan be allowed into the room when the baby is there? Get him used to the new smells.....baby wipes, talcum powder and whatever else is used nowadays.

Get him used to spending more time on his own, but counter balance it with short periods of dedicated ‘Stan time’.

As soon as you get your new buggy/pram, get Stan introduced to it and teach him to heel to the buggy. Most dogs take to it no problem.

If you are able to, expose Stan to new born babies by visiting people and their families that you may meet via ante-natal clinics. Use positive re-inforcement throughout; maybe get a friend to make a recording of a screeching baby and play it at home, rewarding a calm reaction from your boy.

You have five months to prepare him, so should have no problems.
Good luck!
 
Above poster has good advice but my ds was five weeks early so we had done nothing. Tbh for me when my little boy came home I discovered my feelings for my dogs were different and although i love my dogs just wanted them a safe distance from him to the point mine where no longer allowed upstairs. We had been doing the not on the bed thing as prep but had no time to finish the change to her routine so we simply kept them apart.

This was easy with a new baby and non walker but got harder as boy got older. We have three dogs and their lives where a bit less fun for a good while but since I am so risk averse with the dogs and my boy I couldn't allow them ever to be unsupervised in same room.

Now he is three, he walks one and I walk two on a lead in our field but in the house I would never leave him downstairs with them if I was upstairs. In fact now I think about it, they are still never alone with him and I can't see that changing in the near future.MIT has become automatic to check where everyone is.

We have never had an ounce of aggression from any of the dogs apart from once when the 8 week old pup Jrt thought ds was also a puppy and got into a puppy game with him. Ds also knows that dogs must be left alone to sleep but he does still squash them with cuddles and tells me it's ok because they had one eye open!

Best of luck with your pregnancy.myou will be fine as you are thinking about it, a lot depends on your dog but even if dog wary the answer lies in managing them I think.
 
Thanks folks, its me and oh but tbh stan will happily attach himself to anyone who makes a fuss of him...from day one he has stayed with family and friends, will go for walks with anyone etc. But he is centre of attention at home so we will have to start preparing him to share!
He has lots of exposure to little kids, I keep finding him being hugged by 4 yr olds at the yard, and has met very little babies. He pootles round the house with oh's 180 month old nephew.
We are also hopefully moving house in the next month, which will make life easier as current house is all open plan! If we stay here I think a baby play pen will be essential for my sanity!
 
We prepared our red setter by getting her to sleep at bottom of stairs instead of top several months before baby came. We used a stairgate and she was never allowed upstairs again. She was quite mardy for several months, but did come round. she was brilliant with the children but we never left her alone with them as we didn't ever want to put in a risky situation. we taught our girls to respect her but they did have fun together. it just became second nature to make sure they weren't left alone together. I think she actually had more walks when the girls were young as we liked to take them all out.
 
I have a five-month-old son, and two dogs--a pug and a Boston terrier. They have been brilliant, although I do have some concerns about teaching my son when he's mobile--somehow!--to approach my Boston on the "right" side (she only has one eye). She is also a bouncy dog, so I will never leave them unsupervised, lest she tries to play in a boisterous manner with the new "puppy". She understands "gentle" when I say it, but nobody else.

Anyway, they have not batted an eyelid throughout the early months, and my son is now smiling whenever the dogs enter the room, and he's just started to feel their fur and laugh. Very cute.

We baby-gated the nursery, only because a certain pug kept scooting on the rubber floor there, even after he was checked for worms/anal glands expressed. I think it's a hobby. Prior to my son's birth, we disallowed the dogs from sleeping on our bed (utterly painless) and played a tape of a screaming baby daily (pointless, as they both barked when my son--still in his car seat after the hospital--after zero reaction to the tape).

We actually got a dog walker in twice a day for the first six weeks, and it was the best thing we did, as my son went through seriously bad colic/reflux, which turned upside down my vision of long walks in the park with the dogs (I was lucky if I showered during the first two-three months, never mind walk the dogs). Things are much better now, but I still use the walker three mornings a week, as it frees up time for me to get myself together and go to mum and baby groups etc. Afternoons, I walk the dogs for at least an hour, either with the pram (Uppa Baby Vista) or the carrier (Beco Gemini). You get to be a dab hand at picking up poo while steering a pram/holding baby in a carrier. Just don't forget to bring hand sanitiser on your walks!

Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy. How are you feeling?
 
Before my eldest son was born the midwife that was running the antenatal classes did a wee bit on intoducing the new baby to the dogs when you come home from the hospital. We were told that as long as we had well behaved dogs with no issues the best thing to do so as not to end up making the dog jealous is simply to let the dog see the baby as soon as you bring them home. Put the carseat with the baby in it on the floor or couch and let the dogs have a sniff (once they've calmed down if they're excited to see you), after that it was pretty much a case of carrying on as normal. My dogs were great, as i knew the would be, and i never changed anything regarding how i treated them, time spent, attention etc apart from the fact that they walked alongside the pram when i took them out. My GSDx was 7 and my GSD was 1 at the time and they were fantastic with my son in every aspect.
 
We have a 7.5 month old daughter and 4 dogs. The main thing we did was create areas where the baby could be kept away from the dogs, e.g. pen, room divider, so that she is either left away from the dogs or they are all supervised. Having said that we haven't changed much at all. My dogs are used to new animals arriving all the time and know they have to adjust. We do a lot of things that other people may not be entirely comfortable, e.g. the dogs are allowed on the sofa with the baby and two of the dogs continue to sleep on the bed with me and the baby (the baby had a side cot attached to the bed when she was really wee and the dogs were told to sleep on a blanket at the foot of the bed and not move off there and that has worked out really well).

Being different characters the dogs are tolerant of the baby to different degrees. The GSD and the bitch will put up with anything, the bitch sleeps next to us while the baby pulls her hair out - not a bother. The other Spitz keeps himself out of the way and the JRT chooses when he wants attention. I think it's important for the dogs to be able to get away from the baby when they want to, which will become more difficult as the baby starts to walk!

Doing things with a baby in a sling is no problem, you have two free hands and can do almost anything (personally I did not want to be near horses in case they kicked or squashed me though!). Doing things with a pram is OKish, the main problem is taking the pram 'cross country' walking - some are better than others but it's difficult to find a pram that's good cross country, easy to collapse, light weight, etc.

Miraculously the cat has been 100% with the baby. If you have a cat you might want to make sure she cannot jump into the cot/pram with the baby as it is a serious danger of suffocation (you can buy special cat proof nets to avoid this). Luckily our cat seems to know what is baby space and doesn't go there, but will tolerate being stroked and having her hair pulled by the baby (she purrs through-out!!).

Best of luck with the little one, you will have loads of fun!
 
Thanks folks, very reassuring to hear from people who have been there, done that :)

I find prams the most confusing things in the world! But I have come to the conclusion that a sling will be the best thing for walking round Burghley on XC Day :)

Stan sleeps on our bed (like an immovable log!) and we're planning to keep this the same because a)he's so good and b) with moving, and a new baby, it should help to keep things a little 'constant' for him. baby will go in a crib next to the bed at first.

Cats will be permenantly shut out of the baby's room. They are 'special' cats and basically have to have their own bedroom away from everything else or they have a nervous breakdown (rescue cats).

Stan is currently home alone for 8 hours a day during the week, so is pretty good at entertaining himself (which involves yet more sleeping...) :)
 
nadinek82 said:
We were told that as long as we had well behaved dogs with no issues the best thing to do so as not to end up making the dog jealous is simply to let the dog see the baby as soon as you bring them home. Put the carseat with the baby in it on the floor or couch and let the dogs have a sniff (once they've calmed down if they're excited to see you), after that it was pretty much a case of carrying on as normal.
Click to expand...

this was the advice i got from my midwife and the lady who runs the dog training club i go to. all of my dogs have been absolutely fine with the baby. D will even come and wake me up when the baby is starting to stir and i have slept through it
i had all the stuff set up for a while in advance and allowed the dogs to sniff and get used to the new stuff in the house, but made sure they respected the fact it wasnt theirs and they couldnt be in amongst it
buggy training them was pretty simple, poo picking is an artform but im sure it will get easier with more practice

my daughter is 19 days old today, and my dogs are a nearly eight year old rottie x GSD, a 3yo husky x BSD, an 11 month czech wolfdog and an 8 week old JRT
 
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dont have kids, but i would agree with twisteddiamond: this is what i plan on doing when the time comes.

my main worry would actually be the cats: especially if the baby is asleep in a pram/car seat etc, as they have been known to curl up on babies faces as it is lovely and warm, and can suffocate them. :( grim i know- but it happens.

if leaving in a pram out in the garden etc in a buggy asleep then get a cat net for the front of the pram so cats cant get in. ;)

good luck and congratulations. ;)
 
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