Congrats on the baby-to-be! I'm the mommy of an active 2 yr. old and 3 cats. So I guess you can call me the resident "expert" on the boards in this matter. I can tell you what we did and that it worked fine for us and I can tell you how each of our cats reacted.

Before our daughter arrived....we let cats see us in the baby's room. They got to sleep in the crib once it was set up (after all I can always wash sheets later), they got to sniff new clothes, they got to sniff powder and things they wanted to sniff. Basically they got to see that changes were being made but they were still part of it.

When baby was born....hubby took a blanket home with baby's scent. Cats smelled it, looked bored by it. On the day we brought her home, we sat her in the living room in her car seat and walked away. Then we watched:

Al, our head cat, who thinks he's the most macho of the 3, came over sniffed and then took off like a speeding bullet. Then he shook in the corner. Oh yeah, he was scared! LOL! But later he was the first to let her touch him and during the day he'd often be found sleeping with her.

Sheridan, my first "baby" wouldn't go near her. After 2 years he still prefers not to go near her but will let her pet him occasionally. He ignored me for quite some time after bringing her home. He's finally forgiven me. He wasn't mad at hubby though....go figure. LOL!

Cali......she won't even let us near her. But she would meow her loudest and follow me around if baby was crying. She got really brave and was sniffing her nose-to-nose that first day home. She has been caught unawares by toddler and hasn't clawed her yet. But at first opportunity she runs under the beds.

Now during the day, we let the cats in our daughter's room. We had monitors to hear every sound. Our cats like to lay on us sometimes at night, so we were a little worried about that. While they never did this during the day, we didn't want to risk it at night so the door was kept closed and cats not allowed in her room at night.

I know it's too soon to start this but keep in mind as the baby grows no matter how young you teach him or her how to be nice (we started from the time she could roll across the room and grab an unsuspecting kitty) that there will be times that baby/toddler will pull or hit the cats. Most times our cats just run away but sometimes she is just unrelenting and I can't always be right there. Keep your cats up-to-date on shots always. One of our cats bit our daughter recently (I was in the bathroom and heard hissing, ran to rescue kitty and daughter was screaming.....finger swollen 3 times its normal size). Because both toddler and kitty were up-to-date on shots, she didn't need any shots. Did need antibiotics though. She learned her lesson though, she hasn't pulled kitties tail since then.

Anyhow, I hope this has helped. If you have anymore questions, post away and I'll try to remember to get back here and check once in awhile.



Kathryn

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