Are you prepping your home for baby’s arrival? Do you have pets? Read below about what we did to prep our dogs for each of our new babies’ arrival.
Bailey and Buddy were our first “fur”-babies. They’ve been with us since our dating years, members of our family. When we were first pregnant with A, I read up a lot on how to easily transition our dogs to the newest member of our family.
How to Prep Your Pets for New Baby
Set Up Your Nursery / Baby Gear Early
As first-time parents, we made sure to set up the nursery early. Not only for nesting reasons, but we wanted Bailey and Buddy to get used to the new room where the baby would be most frequently. In addition, we decided that we were going to let our dogs roam freely without restricting them from entering the nursery.
We consider Bailey and Buddy members of our family and we didn’t want to build resentment between the dogs and new baby.
We also put together baby gear that we were going to use in the early months. From the baby swing to bouncer, any new pieces were set up, so that the dogs had time to get used to new gear and furniture around our house.
Get Into A Cleaning Routine
I went into major nesting mode with each of the baby’s impending arrival. I made sure to get into a good cleaning routine. Also, I wanted our dogs to get used to having regular cleaning of all spaces throughout the house.
These days, we use Febreze Pet products to keep our house clean and showing ready. Febreze AIR is always my go-to for keeping the house fresh. But, I love using Febreze AIR Heavy Duty Pet Odor Eliminator in the areas, like our laundry room and master bedroom, where Bailey spends a lot of her time.
It’s so quick and easy to refresh the pet odor out of those areas. And it’s safe and effective for our pet-friendly areas of the house.
Bailey is a beagle-terrier and sheds a ton of fur. Swiffer Dusters Heavy Duty and Sweeper Dry and Wet Pet refills help to keep our floors and furniture fur-free. Super easy to swap out our Swiffer with the dry and wet pet sheets that picks up all of her fur from different floor surfaces around our home.
Both products are available now at your local Target retailer or online at Target.com.
Bring Home Baby’s Cap before Arrival
Each time we brought the baby home, I made sure to send D home with the baby’s newborn cap from the hospital. We wanted our dogs to get familiar with the baby’s scent to help with the baby’s arrival.
Other things that you can bring home are swaddle blankets or a plush toy that’s been around the baby.
Practice Gentle Care with a Baby Doll
This might sound silly, but you can start training your pets with a baby doll. We kept one around in the new baby gear, in the nursery, etc. to start teaching our dogs on how to handle and interact with the new baby.
It also gets your pets used to having an infant-sized human around the house!
Don’t Disrupt Their Normal Routine
Once we brought the bab(ies) home, we made sure to keep our dog(‘s) routines as normal as possible. In our house, the dogs weren’t restricted from being around the baby. But, we trained them to be gentle with the boys.
We also taught our boys to have boundaries and to use gentle hands with the dogs, too.
Do you have a pet-friendly home? How was the transition for your pets/kids?
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