Need Advice - Cats & Baby Co-exist

O

OX Jess

Registered User
I have two cats at home. My baby is nearly 4 months old and I start to worry about 'hygiene' when my baby starts to crawl. With cats at home, it is inevitable to have cat fur & sand on the floor, no matter how many times you vaccum a day. My worry is: when my baby crawls, his hands will touch the floor and very likely he will put his hands into his mouth ~~~

Thought about locking the cats in their room (I have a room only for them) but it sounds inhumane to lock them there whole day. Any advice from other cat owners who have cats / dogs at home with a newborn? Thanks.
 
Hi

We have two cats and a (now) 18 month old. Never locked the cats away when he was smaller, when crawling and don't lock them away now. The cats keep their distance from him (he loves to boisterously cuddle them!) and we make sure that we keep the loose fur on the ground to a minimum (hard with long haired cats!). Everything I read says that this generation have weaker immune systems because they are not exposed to eating dirt/sand/grass etc because parents are overprotective. While I would not want my son eating cat fur, I have no problem with him and the cats co-existing in the same space provided the cats are clean and healthy. If your baby is not asthmatic and your cats are clean and healthy, he should be fine.

Don't forget your first "babies" that you had before your real baby arrived!

SB2
 
I have a cat and a dog, both with long fur. The fur does occasionally get on them, you just wipe it off their hands if you see any.
Having cats and dogs is actually supposed to help strengthen their immune systems not the other way around.
The cat litter doesnt spread as I put a rug next to the tray and the grains fall off on that when she walks away.
I think it is good emotionally and physically to grow up with pets.
I dont think there is much of a hygene problem at all (as long as you are a clean and tidy household, in my previous life I did see hygiene issues with pets and babies but that was usually coupled with lots of other issues).
 
We had 3 cats at home and our elder daughter had no problems with them, no alergies or hygiene problems. We were left with 1 when her younger sister was born and her sis was ok in the beginning, but then got eczema after 6 months or so and which got progressively worse. I initially thought it was allergy to food she was eating, cos of the timing. But when she was 1 yr old I took her to see allergy specialist and found out she was actually allergic to cats. What I am trying to say is if your baby is not allergic to cats and you keep a clean house, she will have no problems at all, but if like my youngest, save giving your cat away, no amount of cleaning will stop the allergy.

Also my daughter's allergy was only in form of eczema, no wheezing or runny nose, and did not appear until months later, so I did not even think it was the cat. It is something to look out for if you have a cat and a baby at home.
 
I have a cat at home too, and am expecting my first child soon. I actually wasn't even thinking about this as a problem; I was more concerned that our cat might 'play-fight' with the baby, as he likes to do when my husband pets him (our cat doesn't really do this to me, as I know what type of petting he prefers, but our baby/toddler wouldn't!) But after thinking about your question, regarding the sand litter bit, you might also try switching to a non-sand litter. We use a Japanese kind (I cannot even read the label, otherwise I would let you know what brand) that we get in those super pet stores in Mong Kok. It absorbs the urine and is very light. It looks a bit like white styrofoam bits, and because of its size (each piece is as big as maybe a small peanut) would be easy to spot and brush away from your child when he/she is crawling around. It also doesn't seem to get tracked out of the box much. Hope that helps!
 
Thanks for all the advice, which put me more at ease now. I guess what I'll do is to keep the place as cleanest as I can, i.e vaccum the litter and fur before letting my baby on the floor. I have also sepcially made a threshold at my cat room door in order to keep the litter away from the living room.

The fact is: I, as a cat owner, am not too worried about the problem as I know many cat owner friends who have babies & cats/dogs in the same room and live healthily and happily for years troublefree... But my mother-in-law keeps asking me (since I was pregrent) to send the cats away lest my baby gets infected/allergic. (no need to ask me to try to explain to her, as she strongly believes that cats/dogs are bad for kids' health!) Of course I would not even consider the idea of sending the cats away; but I need to be extra cautious not to let my mother-in-law take something, namely baby gets infected / allergic by the cats, to blame me for later....

Well, thanks again for the advice.
 
I have to say that during pregnancy everyone kept saying "when will you get rid of the cat?" as babies and cats do not mix.

Rubbish I say! Our cat was 4 when baby came home and she was perfectly fine and never tried to sleep in the baby crib or cot, sleep on her head or actually go near her! Now the cat is 9 (next week!) and still no problems.

I kept the kitty liter away and put a safety gate over the door to where it was and found that cats are very clean animals in general.
 
we can have up to 20 dogs at our house at any one time. we've NEVER had a problem with either hygeine or allergies. (ps. the dogs are NOT all ours.)
 
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My friend had a cat who got jealous of the baby or something and started becoming very hostile towards the baby. They had to get rid of the cat.

I think that's more of an issue than allergies. Keep an eye on the animal, try to prepare it as best you can for the baby coming home, and supervise the animal and baby together - that way you'll be able to see if there is that kind of problem.
 
WE have 2 cats. there is hair around, but not big clumps so they never ate it, and we also have the roombp vaccum cleaner which is a robotic vaccum that you can set to go whenever you want and it does a good job of daily cleaning up cat hair and crumbs from the kids.

we have a mat under the litter box but some still makes it to the floor, but it is in the laundry room so it is pretty contained. When they were crawlers we gated the laundry room to keep them out of the litter and the water/food.

No issues with jealousy at all. We made sure to spray the cats with water if they jumped in the crib before baby was born, so they were used to not being allowed there, and I always shut the door and checked for cats hiding int he room when they were sleeping.

Once old enough to get to the tial pulling stage, one cat made sure to never ever go near the children, and the other would let them maul him, never scratch but meow for rescue.
 
So far (my baby is 4 months), my two cats do not show any signs of jealousy. One of them is so curious about the baby that it comes near to have a sniff/touch now and again, while the other one seems does not give any care. I used to play with them, cuddle them, brush their teeth, etc. but I must admit I don't spend much with them now since my baby is born due to the lack of time & energy. Hope jealousy will not grow in both of them.
 
why not get out the cats outside? cats is not good for those have young kids, because it is not good for their health, when they get starts to crawl and they can breath the feather of the cats and the kids might get some disease.
 
there is nothing wrong with having cats around kids. it is not true that they are bad for the health of children. i have heard it is better for children's immune systems to be around animals.

as for having the cats outside, i believe that would not be feasible for 95% of HK's population.
 
I strongly believe having cats/dogs around is good for the kids' immune systems and make them less likely to be allegic (except some very exceptional cases). And, the even more precious thing about having pets to grow up with kids is that it nurture the loving heart and kindess in the kids. They are taught to love and care for the small. I found most kids in HK are scared of (or even dislike) cats & dogs - they scream or refuse to get into the elevator when cats/dgos are around. It's all because their parents are also afraid of / hates cats/dogs...
 
cats are not bad for health. I and my siblings all grew up around cats our entire childhoods and no one ever got a disease from cat, my 2 children have never got sick from a cat I am curious as to what disease you think you would get from a cat? Having the cats ourside would mean the cat is much more likely to be unhealthy as it will pick up respiratory infections from other cats, or possibly rabiers, but I don't know if rabies is that common in Hk, and has a pretty high chance of being run over by a car.
 
I think it mught be cultural too. When my husband visited my family the first time and a cat jumped on him and purred, he thought the cat was going to attack him! He was scarred to death, now he loves cats.
 
Got to say I ws not bothered at all with pets and our baby - spent his 1st 6 months on a UK farm teeming with animals. Yes you hear horror stories about cats smothering babies but we had more trouble getting the cat OUT of the babies bed before we got him in - they didn't stick around when small screechy grabby thing appeared. Oh and one big tom had a thing for stealing his bottles. We just made sure the bedroom was empty of animals when we weren't around the baby.

I know from my old job that a lot of the modern problems with allergies etc are due to kids NOT being exposed to 'dirt & germs'. As long as he wasn't actually crawling in the tray and was reasonable clean I was fine with it - he used to lick the dogs back (yak) and eat catbiscuits if he was faster than us/ the cats...

One thing we did do was put the litter tray in a big box- too tall for baby to reach into and helped contain litter too.

I and baby are really missing the animals now we are in Hk - he learnt to stand up pulling on a dogs gums!
 
Wildcatfin: Your message made me laugh and made me adore my pets even more.

"he used to lick the dogs back (yak) and eat catbiscuits if he was faster than us/ the cats..."
- If my baby boy was like this, I know I would 'scream' but laugh in the same time!!!!
 
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