Need Advice - Cats & Baby Co-exist

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!!!!
 

About this archive

This is an archive of over 20 years of GeoBaby and GeoSchools knowledge and discussions, kept online as a read-only reference.

Back
Top