I noticed this around the forums a LOT when I was pregnant. "Should we get rid of our dog?" "Evict the cats?" etc. etc. I'll give you the fact that NO animals are NOT the cleanest things on the planet, but I bet they're cleaner than the cell phone you used to make that post. Am I right? I haven't heard of anyone slime-ing their cell with lysol if they're holding it near baby.
People and animals have co-existed for years! A little dirt isn't going to hurt anyone, and it isn't fair to poor Fluffy if she gets shafted as soon as baby arrives. If you plan to keep baby in your room, you should relocate your animals months beforehand. This way they're less likely to associate the baby as the reason they're being kicked out. As pet-parents, you want to avoid as many opportunities for jealousy as possible.
If you think that your pet may be aggressive to your new bundle of joy, try to take steps the work through it. As a pet owner myself, giving up a pet would be my last resort. Our experience with our dog, Freya, was a little stressful at first. BUT, we worked through it, and were patient with her- and now she's wonderful! She wasn't mean when we brought him home, just very excited and hyper. She just wanted to lick him, and lay so close that she would have been ON TOP of him if we'd let her (obviously we didn't). We weren't expecting her to act like that, so we hadn't thought to put her out of our room Pre-baby-arrival. We also weren't planning to co-sleep either... oh how plans change!
Fortunately, we live with Jared's parents, so they let Freya sleep in there for the first two months. Every day we would let her sniff him, and lick his feet a bit, but she would get too excited- we ended up using the shock collar to train her. Essentially, we used to same method that we used to get her to stop chasing Marble (our cat) lol. Whenever she got too close, we'd give her a little warning. Within a day she was better. After about a week of wearing the collar around him, she was great. Around the two month mark, he started sleeping in his own bed, and Freya was invited back into ours. Currently, it's all four of us (Reiner has been back in our bed the last week or two), and she doesn't pay any attention to him at night.
Sorry this one is a little rambly, but the main things I wanted to address were making the transition for your pets as gentle as possible, and to remember that pets aren't going to poison your children. By the time their toddlers, dirt will probably be their favourite food lol.
People and animals have co-existed for years! A little dirt isn't going to hurt anyone, and it isn't fair to poor Fluffy if she gets shafted as soon as baby arrives. If you plan to keep baby in your room, you should relocate your animals months beforehand. This way they're less likely to associate the baby as the reason they're being kicked out. As pet-parents, you want to avoid as many opportunities for jealousy as possible.
If you think that your pet may be aggressive to your new bundle of joy, try to take steps the work through it. As a pet owner myself, giving up a pet would be my last resort. Our experience with our dog, Freya, was a little stressful at first. BUT, we worked through it, and were patient with her- and now she's wonderful! She wasn't mean when we brought him home, just very excited and hyper. She just wanted to lick him, and lay so close that she would have been ON TOP of him if we'd let her (obviously we didn't). We weren't expecting her to act like that, so we hadn't thought to put her out of our room Pre-baby-arrival. We also weren't planning to co-sleep either... oh how plans change!
Fortunately, we live with Jared's parents, so they let Freya sleep in there for the first two months. Every day we would let her sniff him, and lick his feet a bit, but she would get too excited- we ended up using the shock collar to train her. Essentially, we used to same method that we used to get her to stop chasing Marble (our cat) lol. Whenever she got too close, we'd give her a little warning. Within a day she was better. After about a week of wearing the collar around him, she was great. Around the two month mark, he started sleeping in his own bed, and Freya was invited back into ours. Currently, it's all four of us (Reiner has been back in our bed the last week or two), and she doesn't pay any attention to him at night.
Sorry this one is a little rambly, but the main things I wanted to address were making the transition for your pets as gentle as possible, and to remember that pets aren't going to poison your children. By the time their toddlers, dirt will probably be their favourite food lol.
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