When you find out that you're pregnant, you are overwhelmed with all of the natural feelings of nervousness and excitement. And if you're a pet owner, you may have an added amount of anxiety when you begin to wonder how your fur baby will get along with your human baby. Here's my tips to keeping your dog feeling like part of the family even with a new baby around.
Before Baby Comes
Obviously by now you know that dogs are very intuitive animals. Between your change in emotions, the baby paraphernalia accumulating throughout the house, and your belly growing too wide for them to snuggle up on, they may realize that something is brewing. So it's important to be sensitive to their feelings like our husbands are sensitive to ours during this time.
I found that the easiest way to ease this newness was to slowly introduce our dogs to baby smells. Such as exposing them to new baby smells through lotions and the newly cleaned baby clothes, letting them be around other babies, and exposing them to baby noises. It helped associate good things with the baby and gradually helped my dogs get used to the idea that a baby is on the way.
Create a New Normal
When your fur-babies are the only babies, it's easy to give them a lot of attention. But when your little one comes into the world, or even as you near the end of your pregnancy, you're going to have a lot less time to play with them. So it's important to pre-adjust your doggy-mommy schedules and routines before the baby comes home. This can be done so bu cutting back time spent them by doing more effective activities. Basically quality over quantity. You can even practice some things that you will be doing with both, such as taking them on walks with the stroller or using a doll to carry during the day to practice how much it will interfere.
Introducing the Baby
Before bringing home your new addition to the family, have whomever is watching your dog pre-introduce the baby. My mother-in-law watched the dogs both times I went into labor. And since she was there for both births, she took the scent home with her, bringing the dogs their first beanies or blankets that they were first wrapped in for them to investigate.
On the day of actually bringing the baby home, make your attitude a priority. Make every attempt to resume your home life before the baby as normal. Such as continuing to let them on the couch if they were before, being careful to not discipline them every time they get close to the baby. Sometimes it may even be easier to first letting someone else carry the baby into the house if your dog is super attached so that there is not immediate amount of jealousy.
Supervising Your Dog and Baby's Relationship
Let's face it, no matter how much we think we know our pets, animals are unpredictable and babies make some erratic movements that may frighten them. So always be present with your baby when they are in the same room as your dog. There could suddenly be a problem when the babies learn to crawl grabbing their favorite toys or learning to grab things grasping fist fulls of hair. But when fostered the right way, the relationship between a dog and baby is beautiful!
Babies grow up with some instilled responsibility - learning how to walk, bathe, feed, and pick up after their furry siblings. They actually are a lot healthier - having a better immune system having exposure to maturation and are less likely to develop respiratory allergies and asthma. They have a higher emotional intelligence - developing compassion and self-esteem through taking care of someone over themselves. They experience a lot more play and exercise. And dogs are the best form of therapy for kids by providing a sense of security, decreasing bad moods, increasing their will to try new things, increasing their want to socialize, and encouraging language development.
Having Another Baby
Even if your dog adjusted well the first time, it's helpful to take the same precaution each time you add onto your family. Because each one will bring a change to the routine.
Our Fur-Family Members
These are our three fur-babies. Our oldest (eight years old), Rey who is a grey and white blue nose pitbull. He is an energetic ball of happiness who loves walks, wienies, rubbing his back on the grass, and lots of petting. Next is our biggest (five years old), Bruno who is a yellow english lab. He is 110 pounds of puppy attitude, loving play time and cuddles. And lastly is our little one (six years old), Bane who is supposed to be a cocker spaniel and chihuahua mix, but I don't really think that he is. He loves sleeping in our bed at night, begging way too much, and daddy's attention.
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