Besides the obvious nesting that goes on, you have to mentally prepare the rest of your family. In my household, "family" includes our dog, Bailey. Although he isn't an aggressive dog, Bailey is a bit on the excitable side. He's incredibly playful, in-your-face friendly.
One of the biggest things we had to teach him was not to jump, especially on my pregnant belly. While we didn't break him of jumping on people altogether, he did stop with me. Whenever I'd open the apartment door, his most jump-inducing event, I'd turn my back to him until he calmed down. Since then, he's learned that I won't tolerate it from him. All he does now is howl, but that I don't mind as I'm entering the apartment with the baby in my hands.
Another thing we did to help Bailey get ready was to walk around with a toy doll. The toy we had actually cried and made noises. I would hold the "crying baby" and rock it. I'd shush it and put it down in the crib. This really helped in showing Bailey that soon something would be making weird noises and taking up my attention. It also helped because we taught him to leave the crib alone. Every time he approached it with the crying baby doll, we'd said "No, Bailey. Leave it."
We'd also use the "Leave it" command to train Bailey with getting used to noisy toys. Getting crazy with kids' toys is one of his worst downfalls. He gets so anxious every year at Christmas because the noises the toys make must be so high-pitched to him. Elmo is his mortal enemy. The second you squeak a "Sophie the Giraffe" he's right next to you, ready to pounce. While I admit, I still haven't broke him of the "Sophie" anxiety, he's a lot better with the rest of Landon's toys. It's all about just playing with them over and over again till they're not a novelty to Bailey anymore.
And one of the last things we did to get Bailey was send home a blanket with the baby's scent on it from the hospital. I've read this over and over again on all the websites and in all of the books. While I can't prove that this helped, I'm sure with all the people recommending it, it had to be true.
Having a baby is anxiety-inducing, especially for the pet in your life. They don't know what's going on. Unfortunately you cannot explain it to them like you can a child welcoming a new sibling. You can just have them get used to the changes they'll be seeing and hope for the best.
No comments:
Post a Comment