Bringing Home a Baby: How to Prepare Your Pet

Bringing a baby home means a lot of changes. It also means a lot of changes in your pet's life. Let us take a look at how you can prepare your pet to be ready for baby introductions.

Pets enjoy routine and consistency in their lives. If you're expecting a baby, then it is likely that your home will see a lot of changes. Whether you are setting up the baby's room or moving things around to make space for the baby's things, you want to do it months before the baby comes in, so your pet has some time to get accustomed to the changes. Else, it will be too many changes for your pet to cope with at once, given that things are moved around the house, and a new member is introduced within a short span of time.Once you bring a baby home your schedule will be packed, you want to anticipate how this may affect your pet's schedule. For instance, you may plan on taking the pet out for a walk while taking the baby in a stroller. You may even get someone else to help you with feeding or walking your pet. If that is the case, then you want to get your pet used to this new routine weeks before the baby comes home.

Do not ignore behavioral problems in your pet. You want to address it at the earliest so your pet is disciplined and calm when the baby arrives. If you do not see any improvement with the behavioral

, then you may want to seek out the help of a professional for the same.Set down any boundaries or limitations that are needed to be set before the baby arrives. For instance, if you want your dog to stay away from the playpen or the nursery, then enforce these rules right away. Make sure you consistently teach your dog to steer clear from these spaces and not just during obedience training.

If you think your pet is ready, then you can give him a sneak-peek of what it is like to have a new member of the house even before the baby arrives. Play baby cry recordings to see how your dog reacts to it. See if you can arrange for interactions between kids in the neighborhood and your pet. This way they can get used to the scent and energy of pets. You want to make sure that the children are told about how to approach the pet beforehand, you do not want either party to get irked or injured. You want to closely monitor the interaction between the two. Pets may behave differently around kids than they do around grownups. If your pet shows behavioral problems like aggression or jumps excitedly around children, then more training lessons may be in order.