Pets and your Newborn

As we are expecting our first child we began wondering how our two cats, Nikki and Dakota, will take to having a new addition to the family. Nikki is a crotchety old lady and Dakota is blind and curious, but we were mostly concerned that Nikki would use the crib as her new bed. So that got us to do some research.

Here are some good tips I found:

• Keep your pets nails trimmed (if applicable, obviously!)
• Introduce your pets to your newborn gradually. Perhaps greeting your pets without the baby first. Then acclimating the pets to their new friend over the next few days.
• Be sure to spend quality time with your pets, make sure they don’t feel neglected.

And to keep the cat out of your baby’s crib you can place tinfoil over the mattress to teach your cats prior to bringing home the baby. Or BabyCenter.com readers recommend using a crib tent.