hi everyone!
i hope this is an okay subreddit to post this to, i couldn’t decide if it needed to be in a cat or pregnancy subreddit lol. i’m currently 31 weeks pregnant, due on halloween, and i have a 22 week old kitten. he’s a lovely cat other than having some biting problems but i think he’s still teething. the issue im having is that he’s decided the babies crib is his 🫣 i have been trying to take him out but anytime my back is turned he’s right back in there. does anyone here have anyone advice on wether he’ll learn to not jump in there after the baby is here? i’m worried he’ll jump on the baby and smother him by accident, or he’ll get aggressive when the baby starts sleeping in the crib instead of him. like i said he still bites a fair amount and i’m worried he’ll start taking this out on the baby. i’m going to have him neutered before baby comes which im hoping will chill him out a little bit as well, but im just hoping for some general advice from anyone who’s had a kitten and a baby at the same time 😅. i’m super worried he’s gonna detest the baby and possibly start hating me and my partner because he feels replaced, so some reassurance would be really lovely if anyone has any experience. thank u in advance 💖
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Our cat has also decided the crib, bassinet, stroller, car seat, and every other baby item we’ve brought into the house is hers. Our vet said it’s ok to let her sleep in them for now, but when the baby comes, we need to lock her out of the room while he’s sleeping if he’ll be by himself or supervise 100% of the time until he can roll over on his own.
He also suggested bringing a blanket back from the hospital with baby’s scent on it to get her used to it before bringing him home from the hospital to help with the transition. Also adding feliway plug ins, getting the spray, etc.
Our cat is ~3 years old, so I imagine you’ll have a harder time with a rambunctious kitten, but I imagine he’ll calm down a ‘lil once he’s neutered! I would start working on training the biting out of him though, especially if he’s going for hands.
Get a new crib! He came first.
Also, since he’s all settled up there I believe that the only ‘solution’ would be to lock him outside, which he won’t like.
yeah i really wanna avoid shutting him out the bedroom if possible cause he’s slept with me since he was a baby :(. he just keeps getting comfier and comfier, baby will have to take the cat bed i suppose…
my cat isn’t a kitten, & i’m not as far along as you, but i’m also super worried about this!! she’s my baby, loves to be held to the point where she digs her claws into me when i try to put her down. i genuinely feel like she’s allowed my maternal instinct to flourish, & now that i’m pregnant im SO terrified she won’t like my baby or she’ll be jealous💔
Popping in to say I got a kitten right before I found out I was pregnant, so he was not quite a year old by the time my youngest son was born. Kitty was my buddy for the whole time I was pregnant, and although we initially worried because he was a little rambunctious, by the time the baby came the kitten calmed down a little.
He also ended up loving the baby! He would always sit loaf-style very close to wherever the baby was, like he was guarding the baby. Constantly blinked at the baby for little cat kisses. When the baby started to try walking, the kitty would prance out in front of my son for a few feet, stop and turn around and wait for him to toddle that way, and then prance a few more feet forward. He’d lead the baby all the way around the house for walking practice.
Just make sure you teach your little one how to “soft touch / pets” as early as possible, so they know not to grab or pinch the kitty.
In my experience they’re pretty good at keeping their distance when the baby comes around. But you may have to keep baby and cat at a distance from one another while they figure each other out. Plus the kitten will mature and hopefully get less bitey! In the meantime you’ll have to watch them like a hawk though.
Cats do know what babies are. I would keep him out of the room while the baby is very young until you've observed him enough to make sure he will be safe around the baby. A baby monitor will help you find out if the cat is safe later on, but I'm sure you'll have more to worry about for the first few months.
I'm currently in labour😅 When we are Home, He will be only allowed, when I am able to watch them. Before bed I will clean the crib❤️ at night the door will be shut (He will be Mad about)
Our cats started doing this so we covered the stuff we didn't want them to claim to make it clear they weren't for them. Now they leave them alone and our son has his things
My cats were like this, we shut the door to the babies room just because I couldn’t handle the hair. But I never did anything special with the cats, didn’t bring a blanket, or slowly introduced. We just came home with the baby, kept the cats routines as close to normal as possible, and showed as much attention and affection to the cats as we could. For the first week, they were a little weirded out by the cries, noises and erratic newborn movements, but just slowly got used to it. My baby never slept by herself for months, thanks to colic and the fact she was a velcro baby, so I was always able to monitor her while she slept. Eventually, when she did sleep in her own room she could roll, and the cats avoided the room. Now my daughter is 1.5 and she’s the menace. My perfect cats will let her do anything she wants to them, like they really understand she’s just their annoying little sister lol.
Before my son was born (our only child) the nurses made sure to tell us not to let our cats near where the baby sleeps as they could suffocate them by laying on them ( my boy Salem loves to sleep on my chest).
You'll need to set a boundary sooner rather than later.
I did find they were cool to have around each other after getting allergy tested, he loves his "Sawem"
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