Three Things We Made To Have Pet And Baby Living Together

If you're an happy cat owner, you know first hand that this cat does not live in your house. You live in his / her house ! Cats like to have their own territory, and newcomers are not always welcome.

Is that a reason to get rid of them when a baby comes ? If you think so, just remember who's house it is... and leave ! Cats are not stupid, and there's no reason to chase them out. If they can live with you, they can live with your baby.

Cats and babies raise various questions:

1. Allergies
2. Hygiene
3. Attacks and fights

When our baby was born, nearly two years ago, did three things to make the cohabitation with our cat possible. Given it's a mid-age cat, with no easy character (hey, she's a cat after all), we were rather concerned...

The beleif that cats can sleep over babies is rather common, and even if we were not convinced, we preferred not to take a chance on that. To avoid this problem, and reduce the allergy risks, we re-defined the territories.

The baby room became a "no-cat" area, at least until we got sure that baby could defend itself from a "cat jump on you" kind of attack, and that the allergy question was a non-issue.

But this is not all. The cat also deserves a "no-baby" area. By this time, it was my office, where the cat had a "cat-tree" and "cat-box" where to hide. When baby got mobile (cat was a great motivation...), we explained her not to touch or disturb the cat in this place.

We treat the cat as a family member. Not with all rights and duties (we're not THAT nuts), but with some. When baby joined the family, we introduced her to the cat, and vice-versa.

The first "encounters" were closely monitored, but as they have to live together, we did not wanted strict "don't touch"-like rules. As long as baby was not mobile, the cat came by regularly, but she clearly understood that the baby was important to us, and never made any silly thing.

In the second phase, we also explained to baby that the cat was not like any toy-plush, deserved special care and attention, and so on... One problem was that baby came by the cat calmly, and was then so excited that she started to shout, which made the cat go away.

This scenario repeated so many times, and the cat nailed baby a couple of times. On the other hand, we no longer count the fur-pullings by baby...

As good as cats can be, they remain animals, with instinct. Particularly territory-protection instinct can lead to strong reactions - not mentioning self-protection.

Babies can also do strange things, simply because they don't understand or know how things go. So to avoid any problem, don't leave cat and baby together without having an eye on them.

This is anyway THE basic rule for babies, particularly after they start walking. It's part of our parent role to leave them discover the world, under our supervision, to ensure it goes smoothly.

Removing all risks (included those induced by cats or other pets) is not a good thing, as the world itself is not risk-free, but that's another story.