When you're expecting a human baby in the family, everyone needs to get prepared, and that includes your cat! This guide is our recommendation on how to prepare your cat before your bundle of joy is earth side, and how to introduce your cats to your newborn once they are born (both before & after they come home!)
Now… how do you get your fur-baby ready to share their parents with a human baby?!
Preparing your cat for the arrival of the new baby is important in making sure that your cat and your baby will get along. In animal rescue, we commonly hear families who adopted cats and then expanded their family struggle with their cats and their baby having a good relationship. We want to help you facilitate that relationship, starting before the baby is even earthside, so you can set both your cat and your new baby up for a happy future together! We WANT your child to one day look back and have fond memories of their childhood cat! When children have a bad relationship with an animal at a young age, it can become a reason they don’t like cats in the future, and we don’t want that to happen! We also want your cat to understand that they are still loved, even though they are not the only baby in the house anymore. I’m sure you’re here because you also want your beloved cat and your new child to have a great relationship!
This guide is broken up into 3 parts: Before your baby is born, when they are first born but aren't home yet, and when they first arrive home! Check out the entire guide, and refer back to it as you need!
However, please keep in mind, this guide is specifically tailored for families who already have cats in the home before the arrival of a baby. If you have a baby already and are adopting a new cat into your home, this isn't the right guide, you want to visit our new pet introduction guide!
I hate to say this to you, friend. But your cat doesn’t understand that you are pregnant or what that even means. It is up to you to prepare them! Part of this involves you thinking like a cat instead of thinking like a human. To you, you know what is coming and have been mentally preparing for your newborn since you found out you were pregnant. To them, they have no idea- suddenly, their parents are just giving attention to a new tiny human that showed up. We can prepare your cats now for the baby, the entire time you are expecting! Here are some ideas to prepare your cat for your baby before they are earthside!
Do not limit your cat’s space in the home.
Once expecting families start collecting baby items, they usually start putting them in a nursery, and then close the door to the nursery because they don’t want the cat messing with anything. That is often the first mistake that is made, which causes things to just continue to go downhill from there regarding your cat and their relationship with the baby.
Think of this from your cat’s perspective for a minute:
Your cat could go in this room their whole life, and now suddenly there are all these new things coming into the home- a crib, a rocking chair, a baby swing- and it’s all being put in this room that is now closed off from you all the time. This is automatically going to make the room more interesting to them, and they’re not going to understand why they can’t go in there anymore, and will start associating the items they aren’t allowed to be with as items they don’t like anymore. This is where the peeing-on-the-baby-items come into play later in the game.
To stop all this from snowballing right off the bat, you are not going to close off your nursery while you are preparing it. Now, I’m not saying “allow the cat in the crib!” I’m saying, allow your cat in the room. Let them smell the crib and check it out (don’t let them sleep in it or hang out in it, but let them explore it for a minute.) Let them check out the baby swing. Let them walk around the room. Let them sit on the rocking chair. Let them be apart of the room too.
Then, take this a step further and…
Set up a tiny spot for them in the nursery.
Put a cat hammock by the window in the nursery. Put a cat bed next to the rocking chair. Put a whole cat tree in the corner if you really want to! This is allowing your cat to be in the nursery, but giving them their own space in the nursery. The rest is baby’s, but this tiny area is just for them. When your cat wants to explore the crib (where we obviously don’t want the cat being once baby is here) redirect them to their cat-spot in the room, and give them some treats there. When you start giving them treats, give them to them in that spot in the nursery. They will start associating that spot with a spot they like to be in!
So when the baby is here, your cat will be able to sit in the cat bed next to you while you do feedings, or hang out in their window hammock while you’re doing the bedtime routine! This is incorporating your cat into your baby’s life, instead of limiting your cats life.
Play Baby noises off YouTube on a speaker in different parts of your home.
Lets go back to thinking like a cat for a second. Imagine all of a sudden, you go from a cat in a home with 2 adults where it’s usually pretty quiet, to hearing a baby cry in the middle of the night. As a human, you’ve been preparing yourself for this. As a cat, they had no idea this was coming. This may shock them and cause your cat to become nervous or scared and uncomfortable around the baby. To help prepare your cat, you want to get them acclimated to the sounds of the baby before your baby is here. This way, they’re already used to your baby making noises and crying when they arrive! Try looking up all sorts of baby noises- especially crying-- and play it loudly in your home. If you have a portable speaker, link your phone to the speaker and play the noise so it’s loud. Alternate between different videos so they sound different. Move the speaker to different rooms and play it in the nursery, in your bedroom, in your living room, in your bathroom, wherever your baby may be so they get used to the noises. The key to this step is to do this a couple of times a day for at least your entire 3rd trimester, but the earlier you start, the better!
If you are going to use a sound machine in the nursery or in your bedroom when baby comes, we recommend you start using the sound machine before the baby arrives, too so they get used to the noise of the sound machine.
Carry a baby doll around your house like you’re going to carry a baby.
One of the issues families can face with their cat adjusting to the new baby is that they are not used to physically sharing YOU. When you sit down to watch tv in your living room… does your cat jump up with you and sit on your lap? Think like your cat for a second: They jump up on the couch to sit on their owner’s lap just like they always do… and suddenly, this time, they’re holding somebody ELSE?! Your cat has no idea who that is, but they are instantly jealous. “That’s my person, who are they holding instead of me?!” is what we run into. To help stop this before the baby is even earthside, you want to get them used to sharing you and sharing your space with a baby. We recommend you get a cheap baby doll (one from the dollar store works perfectly, but we recommend a doll over a stuffed animal, so it kind of resembles a human baby) and you’re going to start carrying that doll around your house. Hold it while you’re watching TV, when you’re sitting on the couch, carry it around when you’re moving in the home, act like you’re burping the baby. When your cat is curled up on your lap, hold the baby doll, but also pet them. Get them used to sharing your physical space. Make sure both parents are taking turns with the doll, so your cat gets used to everyone having the baby.
Invite a friend or family member who has a baby over for a few hours.
Not everyone knows somebody who has a baby under 1 year old, but if you do, ask them to help you out! Ask them to swing by for a few hours with their baby to let your cat experience being around a baby. Invite your friend and their baby into the living room, spread some baby toys out on the ground, and hang out on the floor with your friend and their baby for an hour or two. Don’t force your cats to come around but allow them to if they want to. Let them be curious. You may find your cat doesn’t come out at all, and that’s okay! Your cat just hearing real-life baby noises will be beneficial! This will also help you gauge how your cat feels around babies! We recommend you try to do this with babies who aren’t yet walking.
Buy a special toy as a “gift from the baby” and save it for the day the baby comes home!
Find a really enticing toy for your cat- something that is better than anything else they currently have, or a brand-new version of their favorite toy. If you know Pet Angel, you know that we highly recommend YEOWW toys (a certain brand of cat toy that is stuffed with 100% catnip, no pillow stuffing. The cats in our rescue go crazy for these, so we always recommend them as a special gift for your cats!) but another cool idea would be a battery-operated toy that you can set up on the floor and turn on for them, so they can keep busy and be physically active without you having to wiggle the toy yourself. We recommend you order these toys before the baby is born, but keep the toys hidden in a drawer or the closet that the cat can’t get to until the day the baby comes home from the hospital. After you guys come home, get the toy out and give it to them within the first few hours of coming home. This will be beneficial because you’ll be giving them something new and exciting and enticing to keep them busy while you adjust to giving birth and with your new schedule with a newborn.
(Need a toy idea? Check out Pet Angel's Toy Recommendations on Amazon! These are the cats favorite toys at the rescue!)
Once the baby is born, before they are released from the hospital to go home, have the non-birthing parent bring a baby clothing item from the hospital that the baby has worn home for the cats to smell. A hat or onesie that the baby has worn in the hospital, or a blanket that the baby was wrapped in, are the ideal items to bring home for this scent introduction. Make sure you don’t wash it, you want it to be off the baby, so it has the baby’s scent but don’t pick one that is soiled. By bringing home an item that the baby wore from the hospital, you will be introducing the baby's scent to the cats before the baby has even arrived, so they will already be familiar with the scent. This will make them feel more comfortable when first meeting your baby. We recommend that the non-birthing parent is the person who does this, because they are one of the primary humans in the cat’s life, and will be one of the people who will primarily be in the home with the baby. However, if the non-birthing parent is unable to come home prior to the baby being released from the hospital or you are a single parent, we recommend you ask somebody that your cat knows, is familiar with, and will approach do this step for you prior to the baby coming home. Most cat behaviorists recommend this step as a vital step in the introduction of a newborn baby to cats, especially cats who have not been around a baby before.
Do not limit your cat’s space.
When you first come home with a baby, do not lock your cats up. Of course, we don’t want you to allow the cat to climb into the car seat and lie on top of your newborn, but we also don’t want you to shut them in a room just because they are curious. They need to learn their boundaries, but by closing them off from the baby altogether, they will not learn boundaries; they will just get jealous. Allow them to come see you- they missed you while you were away having the baby. Allow them to smell the baby’s things, the baby carrier. Praise them a lot, and give them treats when they come around you and the baby during the first few days home. It’s okay to close the door to the nursery if you’re leaving baby unattended, of course, but when the room isn’t in use, leave the door open and allow them to come in.
Continue your cat’s normal routine- but add one extra time just for them!
If you always feed them at 8 am, continue to feed them at 8 am. If you scoop their litterbox every night before bed, make sure the litterbox is still getting scooped every night. If they get wet food at dinner every night, make sure they still get that wet food! If you find its hard for you to juggle your cat’s usual routine with your newborn’s new routine, look into some solutions that can help with that! Automatic litterboxes will keep your cats litterbox fresh for you. There are automatic cat feeders for both wet and dry food that you can set up for multiple days at a time, and set it to open at a certain time, so you don’t need to worry about feeding them multiple times a day. Families who find that their cat’s care takes the back burner once the baby comes home from the hospital are the ones who have their cat begin to act out. Keep their routine consistent.
While keeping their routine consistent, we also encourage both parents to add a 5–10-minute time slot every day to spend one-on-one time with the cat. When you put the baby down for bed at night, maybe that’s their special wet food time where you go into the kitchen, give your cat some cuddles, and give them some special wet food. Maybe when the baby takes their morning nap, you get treats out and hide them around the house for your cats to find throughout the day (which will give them something to do and keep them busy while you’re busy). Maybe in the afternoon, when the baby is napping, instead of lying down and scrolling, you lay down and wiggle a stick toy off the side of the couch to play with it (while still taking your well-deserved break.) Whatever works for you, pick just 5-10 minutes of your day where it’s just you interacting with your cat, so they know they still are loved too!
Don’t ignore your cat.
Make an effort to still pet your cat, call them onto the couch when you sit down, still play with them, and still give them attention. We mentioned it earlier, but families who find that their cat care takes the backseat when baby comes home are the families who find that their cat acts out, and that’s because it all boils down to one thing: you don’t want your cat to become jealous of your baby. The biggest recommendation of all is to simply not ignore your cat. The newborn stage can be so hard and stressful on new parents. A study done by Cornell University shows that interacting with cats can lower levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress. Petting cats can also release oxytocin, a hormone that promotes feelings of well-being and relaxation.
So, interacting with your cat daily one-on-one will help you during your newborn stage too!
Remember the 3-3-3 rule in cats.
The 3-3-3 rule in cats is usually used for when a cat is changing environments but can also be applied to bringing a newborn into a cat’s life for the first time. It will take your cat at least the first 3 days your newborn is home for them to decompress from the stress they will experience of a newborn joining the family. You may find that during the first 3 days, your cat is acting distant from you, isn’t coming around as much, or may even be hiding, but this will slowly fade after the first 3 days of being home. Over the first 3 weeks of your newborn being home, your cat will begin to adjust to them, their noises, their scent, their presence, and the new routine that you and your family is establishing. It will take up to the first 3 months that your newborn is home for your cat to fully acclimate to them. Remember that this is new to all of you: You have never been a parent before, your baby has never been a baby before, and your cat has never lived in a home with a baby before. Everyone is adjusting, so be patient and try to think like your cat in the situation. Most of all: don’t ignore them.
"I followed the guide, but my cat's having issues!"
If you find that your cat is going #1 or #2 outside the litterbox, do not panic. Bringing home a newborn can be stressful for your cat, and stress in cats can cause UTIs. Cats can’t speak English, so they can’t tell you “hey, I don’t feel good!” So instead, they may go outside the litter box. If your cat is peeing or pooping inappropriately, call your vet FIRST! Get them into the vet to check for a urine/stool sample (whichever they are doing outside of the box) and see if it’s a medical issue. If your vet rules out a medical issue, explain that you just brought a newborn home, and see if they can give your pet some anxiety medication to help ease them into the new routine at home. But you need to first rule out that they are not sick due to stress before you decide it is behavioral. You can also check out our guide on what to do if your cat is not using the litterbox here!
If you have followed all the recommendations in this guide to a T and still find that your cat is having behavioral problems around your baby, like hissing or growling, hiding a lot, any signs of physical aggression, or fighting the other cats in the home, we recommend you do two things before you decide to rehome your cat.
1) Contact your vet about behavioral problems and see if anxiety medication is something they can do to help your cat through this introduction period, and
2) look into an animal behaviorist. Animal behaviorists can be extremely beneficial in helping you think like your cat and understand where they are coming from to better understand the situation and mend the relationship so your cat is more comfortable.
There are so many things you can do to ensure your cat is ready for your newborn, is introduced to the newborn, and is reminded that they are still a part of your family and are loved so they do not become jealous. Because you’re reading this guide, we know we want your cat and your child to have a good relationship, and that you will be committed to ensuring your newborn has a great childhood growing up with a cat, and that your cat will stay with their loving family! Your cat will grow to love your child as they get older, and one day you’ll see your cat from before your baby was born snuggling with your baby and think “this was all worth it.”
Congratulations again on your new baby, and good luck on your introduction period!
You got this, we believe in you!