Cats and babies...am I being silly?

[Lady TS]

I have never had cats and kids at the same time, so bear with me. :mrgreen

My dd is almost 4 mo old. We got 2 kittens that are about 6 weeks old. Do I need to worry about them getting into the crib/pack-n-play and laying on her and hurting her?(or, my 'silly' worry--them smothering her?) I have been watching them today and they haven't seemed to bother her. I'm trying to figure out whether to put them out on the porch at night so they don't hurt dd, or to let them have free reign of the house...

Dd's crib is about 2 feet from our bed.

[milkmommy]

Well we wittnessed our cat jomp into the babys bassinett and try to lick the breastmilk dribble off our newborn DD face. It freaked us out enough to keep him away from the baby if we weren't right their.

Deanna

[Lady TS]

See, I'm not being silly! You have proof!
Guess I should listen to my intuition and just go by that..... :shifty

[Desert Rose]

My 2 cats become porch cats when ds was born. They have never been outdoor cats (our porch is screened in and large.)
One of my cats loved to sleep on our heads, so we couldn't take the risk. :shrug

[Mother of Sons]

Our first kitten used to jump in the bassinet and scratch 's face. I finally found a new home for it because I didn't have any patience for that sort of thing.

[UltraMother]

I've always had cats when my kids were babies, and I have never had any problems whatsoever. :shrug

[domesticzookeeper]

Yeah, our oldest cat has been around since before my brother was born (she's 16 now). Never once bothered my baby brother or (eventually) my baby sister. And they're her best friends now :tu

FTR, cats smothering babies is an urban legend: http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/catsuck.htm
(beware: article makes passing mention to co-sleeping, and it's not positive :rolleyes)

[Lady TS]

You know, I was wondering about the urban legend thing. Just hadn't gotten around to looking it up.

One of the kittens was putting its paws up on the mattress of the crib like it was going to jump up there last night, so I went ahead and put them out on the porch. Of course, they didn't like that and clawed the door trying to climb up and look in the window. :rolleyes But they survived just fine. :)

[Amber]

My cat has been just fine with ds. He will occasionally jump in the crib, but we just take him out. We also keep the door to ds's room closed when he is sleeping...more so the cat doesn't make noise in there than anything. There are some things you can do to make the crib an undesirable place for the cats. You can cut a piece of cardboard that is the same size as the crib matress and cover that cardboard with aluminum foil or double sided sticky sheets (you can get them at the craft store), then just put that in the crib when your dd is not using it. Most cats don't like the feel of aluminum foil, and I have never met a cat that like something sticky on it's paws. Also, could you just keep the door to your bedroom closed so the kittens don't go in there?

I would be a good idea to regularly trim your kitten's nails, so that if they do happen to scratch your dd it won't be as bad of a scratch.

[UltraMother]

BTW, what a cute baby you have, and I looove her sunflower blanket!

[Minouche]

I just found out I'm pregnant with my first child, so I don't really know much about cats and babies interacting yet. But that is one of my biggest fears. I have a really old cat (she's 16) and she's been my baby all of my life. It would kill me if my cat and my baby have problems together.

Does anyone have any experience in introducing a cat and a newborn to each other?

[milkmommy]

Really I didn't have issues I felt uncomfortable with my baby being "alone" with our cat so if she was sleeping in her crib I kept the door closed and the moniters on and we closed the bedroom door at night. That was about it. Unfortunally while I was in the hospital giving bith kittys kidneys were failing, despite trying we put him to sleep when DD was a few months old :cry

Deanna

[Sanveann]

I would just keep them away from her while she's sleeping -- other than that, she should be fine. Can you just keep the kittens out of your room at night? (We never let ours in the bedroom, because of DH's allergies.)

[This Busy Mom]

I've always had cats and babies... I have had to kick the cats out of the bassinet or cradle or they think they can sleep in them all the time (cat hair... ew). Only issue we've had is my older cat wasn't so thrilled about the new baby wanting to touch him and he scratched her once.