Coping with pets and having a baby.

caevans

I remember being worried about how my cats (2 x house cats) were going to react to baby and had concerns about not giving them enough attention. All I can say is, there was no need to worry!! Cats couldn't care less about new baby, and myself and husband still smother our cats with attention.
My friend has a newborn baby and a couple of dogs and has a dog walker help out with walking the dogs (they have always used a dog walker anyway whilst at work) and saves family walks when her husband is around.
You will probably find that you just need to try a few things out to see what works best for you. Amazing the things I worried about whilst pregnant! Lesson learned and I have learned to not stress out so much :-)

Hazy

I have to confess that I have struggled with my two dogs for some time now. My son is now 2 and we have baby number two on the way and I am worried how it will pan out. One of our dogs needs more exercise than we can manage he is also still quite scared of my son. I feel awful at the thought but we are considering rehoming the younger dog. The older dog is a dream with our son and as she is getting on a walk round the village while my son is in the buggy suits her fine.

We did some training with our dogs before our sons arrival. I trained them to walk on the lead at whatever pace so they will now walk at a snails pace if required - necessary when you've had a section. We also practised with the buggy and I can walk them with the buggy just fine and they are both big dogs. I also put one of the dogs into a gentle leader so I have that bit more control as I found late in pregnancy I was struggling to manage them when I was feeling weak.

kr15snw

OHs sister had a dog (border collie) when both of their kids were born and shes been fine with them. She agreed it was great having her around as she had someone to cuddle at the end of the night (hubbie was no good for that, lol) plus it got her out of the house every day.

The dog just had notorious training to walk to heel by the pram before the birth and then she had no problems taking both for walks

Now the kids are 18 months and 4 years and cassie is their best friend

GettingHitched

Il let you know...we are trying for a baby atm

I have 3 dogs, two cats, two rabbits, two leopard geckos and 3 corn snakes....could be interesting!

ymakesmile

Thanks everyone for your replies. It certainly is interesting to hear other points of view and how you have managed. I know it's something we just won't realise how hard it willl be until it happens. At the moment I don't walk the dogs alone anymore anyway, it is something me and my partner always do together now as it's much easier with 3 dogs. I wouldn't even dream of walking them alone with a baby and I think my OH has realised he will probably have to be the dog walker for a few weeks at least.;)

GettingHitched

Im a bit of an organisation freak, so in my mind...I will be walking the dogs before the babe wakes in the morning, and before OH goes to work. Then they will have a walk with the two of us in the evening when the OH gets back.

Can feed them (and cats) when Baby is having naps/being fed. Rabbits can be fed on return from Dog walking am/pm, Leos will be fed after baby is down for the night, and Corns are only fed weekly/10 days so not too much of a problem.

galvanizersbaby

GettingHitched wrote: »

Im a bit of an organisation freak, so in my mind...I will be walking the dogs before the babe wakes in the morning, and before OH goes to work. Then they will have a walk with the two of us in the evening when the OH gets back.

Can feed them (and cats) when Baby is having naps/being fed. Rabbits can be fed on return from Dog walking am/pm, Leos will be fed after baby is down for the night, and Corns are only fed weekly/10 days so not too much of a problem.

You may find that you need your sleep and the last thing you want/are able to do is get up before your baby wakes in the morning (given you and baby may be awake in the night).

I have never had dogs so I never considered this aspect of walking them after having a baby but most interesting.

Let us know how you get on but please be good/kind to yourself - you may need to draft in extra help for the dog walking!

GettingHitched

Maybe...thing is I will not trust anyone else with my dogs ( even tho I do dog walking for others myself! )

MrsTinks

ymakesmile wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies. It certainly is interesting to hear other points of view and how you have managed. I know it's something we just won't realise how hard it willl be until it happens. At the moment I don't walk the dogs alone anymore anyway, it is something me and my partner always do together now as it's much easier with 3 dogs. I wouldn't even dream of walking them alone with a baby and I think my OH has realised he will probably have to be the dog walker for a few weeks at least.;)

Unless you're super woman then count on a lot longer than a few weeks I tried going out for an hour (with hubby, mum and baby) about 10 days after having her and it knocked me for six and all I did was bumble very slowly with lot's of sit downs... your energy stores will be at an all time low after giving birth and I didn't even have a C-section :eek:

Plan for the worst: have something in place assuming you will have triplets, by c-section and won't be able to walk for 6 months - that way when you have 1, it goes swimmingly, you're back jogging the week after you'll think it's all a doddle - rather that than the other way round

galvanizersbaby

GettingHitched wrote: »

Maybe...thing is I will not trust anyone else with my dogs ( even tho I do dog walking for others myself! )

I'm not sure what you mean by not trusting anybody else with the dogs (perhaps because I'm not a dog owner) but perhaps you could get somebody to watch baby while you walk them instead.

Either way good luck - sounds like you'll have a lot to be keeping busy with