Dogs and children
- Thread starter Luckytcb
- Start date
Just get them ready to have the baby in the house. If you have friends with babies have them bring them over, let the dogs smell the baby stuff and then smeel a blanket after the baby is born. I have a 6 mth old and if you search my pictures you can tell this has never been a issue and we had 4 dogs now 5. Just make sure to give them lots of love and attention and teach them the baby is a good thing. Encourage sniffing and exploring the baby and the babys room. My dog is now my daughters best friend and protector.
There is no reason why you can't integrate everyone into the new family and routine. It's easier than it might sound and the payoffs are immesurable.
First, and what a lot of parents worry about is the dog in the nursery room or something like that. You can very easily teach the dog to stay outside of that room if you want through the clever use of a "stay" command and a babygate. Now, if you don't mind the dogs being in there, disregard this statement. Have a special chew toy or something that they only get when they are lying quietly on the floor in that room, to build the association that good, calm things happen in that room.
The dogs are going to know something is changing. Your wife is going to be changing and both of you will be bringing lots of new and very interesting stuff into the house. Keep to as normal of a routine as possible, this is going to be the best thing for them.
When your wife comes home from the hospital with the baby, I suggest a couple of things. First, if she stayed overnight and the baby has a diaper or a blanket that they've used, bring that home with you and let the dogs get a gooooood long sniff at it. Quietly tell them what good dogs they are, tell them what's going on. They may or may not actually understand what you're saying, but the tone of your voice will clue them into a lot. Next, when you do bring everyone home, you take the baby and let your wife walk in first. She's still going to smell of the hospital, delivery and all sorts of new hormones, so it's best if she's not carrying anything while the dogs take in all the new smells. After they calm down, let them carefully sniff the baby and feed them good treats. Again, build that good association in their minds.
Congratulations, good luck and don't hesitate to ask any other questions, or to provide us with pictures of your pups!
First, and what a lot of parents worry about is the dog in the nursery room or something like that. You can very easily teach the dog to stay outside of that room if you want through the clever use of a "stay" command and a babygate. Now, if you don't mind the dogs being in there, disregard this statement. Have a special chew toy or something that they only get when they are lying quietly on the floor in that room, to build the association that good, calm things happen in that room.
The dogs are going to know something is changing. Your wife is going to be changing and both of you will be bringing lots of new and very interesting stuff into the house. Keep to as normal of a routine as possible, this is going to be the best thing for them.
When your wife comes home from the hospital with the baby, I suggest a couple of things. First, if she stayed overnight and the baby has a diaper or a blanket that they've used, bring that home with you and let the dogs get a gooooood long sniff at it. Quietly tell them what good dogs they are, tell them what's going on. They may or may not actually understand what you're saying, but the tone of your voice will clue them into a lot. Next, when you do bring everyone home, you take the baby and let your wife walk in first. She's still going to smell of the hospital, delivery and all sorts of new hormones, so it's best if she's not carrying anything while the dogs take in all the new smells. After they calm down, let them carefully sniff the baby and feed them good treats. Again, build that good association in their minds.
Congratulations, good luck and don't hesitate to ask any other questions, or to provide us with pictures of your pups!
Well I have 3 children, and my youngest is less than 3 weeks old.
My dog's adjusted quite well to the new baby, she's already "uninteresting" except when she cries while we are sleeping...then I usually get a nice wet tongue on my face to wake me up (as if the crying hadn't already) to say "hey good feed your puppy, I can't sleep while it makes noise"...
But other than that, neither of them showed any particular interest in the new baby.
My dog's adjusted quite well to the new baby, she's already "uninteresting" except when she cries while we are sleeping...then I usually get a nice wet tongue on my face to wake me up (as if the crying hadn't already) to say "hey good feed your puppy, I can't sleep while it makes noise"...
But other than that, neither of them showed any particular interest in the new baby.
Thank you so much for the feedback everyone, I'm just overly worried.
Do you find you're still able to devote as much time to your dogs? I just don't want to make them take the back seat to the new addition. I know to anyone else that would sound weird, but I really do consider them my children/best friends as well.
Do you find you're still able to devote as much time to your dogs? I just don't want to make them take the back seat to the new addition. I know to anyone else that would sound weird, but I really do consider them my children/best friends as well.
Hi and welcome, shortly before the birth of my son I moved back with my mother and her dogs adjusted beautifully to the new addition.
Granted they had plenty of prior exposure to babies and children beforehand so all that I really focused on was brushing up on some basic obedience and making sure they understood what the babies things were and that they were not for the doggies.
When I brought Hunter home the dogs fussed over and instantly bonded with him and they have been best friends ever since.
Is there still as much time to devote as before. In my experience one can devote just as much time but you need to find out ways to be creative with it.
For example the dogs are used to being able to climb and lay in my lap, with a newborn in my arms that was just not possible so we adjusted, they could still get their cuddles but they could not lay in my lap when I was holding the baby so they either had to lay beside me or wait a bit.
They also figured out they can be part of things by licking Hunters feet when I was holding him. It made him coo and laugh and the dogs felt part and included. LOL although they created a monster because now when they lay next to him he sticks his feet in their face and wiggles his toes for them to kiss. It gets him a tail wag and his toes kissed.
Granted they had plenty of prior exposure to babies and children beforehand so all that I really focused on was brushing up on some basic obedience and making sure they understood what the babies things were and that they were not for the doggies.
When I brought Hunter home the dogs fussed over and instantly bonded with him and they have been best friends ever since.
Is there still as much time to devote as before. In my experience one can devote just as much time but you need to find out ways to be creative with it.
For example the dogs are used to being able to climb and lay in my lap, with a newborn in my arms that was just not possible so we adjusted, they could still get their cuddles but they could not lay in my lap when I was holding the baby so they either had to lay beside me or wait a bit.
They also figured out they can be part of things by licking Hunters feet when I was holding him. It made him coo and laugh and the dogs felt part and included. LOL although they created a monster because now when they lay next to him he sticks his feet in their face and wiggles his toes for them to kiss. It gets him a tail wag and his toes kissed.
My dogs never saw the babies come into the house. They were at the kennel when we took them home, and we put them in the crib and closed the door. My husband brought the dogs home and the babies cried, and both dogs were at the door, tails wagging like mad.
We had to be careful at first, one was being quite pushy and really wanting to smell the babies when we were holding them, so he ended up being crated at feeding times for a while... but no problem whatsoever after that. They're great now, even when we're holding the babies at their head's level. Tips is always licking their face, which is driving me insane, but it makes my husband laugh... I'm just careful to separate them from the babies when they are on the floor/in their swing/bouncer (not much anymore) with baby gates.
The main problem we have is that my golden has high separation anxiety and barks if he's gated away from us. So obviously it hasn't changed his life for the best, as it happens more and more now. We set up a playpen so that the dogs can still be with us, but it won't last forever once the babies get more mobile. We will have to use baby gates to keep the dogs away, and I'm not sure how he will take it. I don't trust him around the babies if they're on the floor because he gets overly excited and pushy when anyone is on the floor, so I'm not risking it considering that he's 85lb.
That being said, in my case it's twins so it's probably worse.
We had to be careful at first, one was being quite pushy and really wanting to smell the babies when we were holding them, so he ended up being crated at feeding times for a while... but no problem whatsoever after that. They're great now, even when we're holding the babies at their head's level. Tips is always licking their face, which is driving me insane, but it makes my husband laugh... I'm just careful to separate them from the babies when they are on the floor/in their swing/bouncer (not much anymore) with baby gates.
The main problem we have is that my golden has high separation anxiety and barks if he's gated away from us. So obviously it hasn't changed his life for the best, as it happens more and more now. We set up a playpen so that the dogs can still be with us, but it won't last forever once the babies get more mobile. We will have to use baby gates to keep the dogs away, and I'm not sure how he will take it. I don't trust him around the babies if they're on the floor because he gets overly excited and pushy when anyone is on the floor, so I'm not risking it considering that he's 85lb.
That being said, in my case it's twins so it's probably worse.