Baby Came Home

My daughter started daycare last month and this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Last week, when my husband picked her up with the little baggie they send her stuff home in, I found a bottle nipple that had another girl's name written on it. A few days later, she came home with a full bottle and top with that same girl's name written on them. Some might say I should be more skeeved by the idea of my baby coming home with another baby's bottle than her wearing another girl's onesie.

Baby Came Home

Is baby girl X's mom wondering where that puppy onesie is? Is she mad at me/my baby? Does she even know who we are? Do the daycare teachers even CARE that I spent hours labeling my daughter's clothes!?

The local news anchors were talking all about a deadly fire in Schenectady before "Today" opened up with a package called "Campaign Chaos!" all about Ted Cruz apparently snubbing Donald Trump last night at the Republican National Convention. Fifteen minutes of that story led into a breaking news story of someone putting a bomb in a cop car in Columbus Circle in NYC this morning. Though it's not a good excuse, having a baby has given me less time to pay attention to this election, or the police/Black Lives Matter issues (embarrassingly, I have made time to understand the Kimye/TSwift #TaylorSwiftExposedParty issue though).

I've somehow ignored some of the biggest issues facing our country right now and, instead, focused on much smaller things. But you know what took me less than 3 seconds to notice and then focus on for hours when I got home from work yesterday? The onesie my daughter was wearing.

Every year, nearly 9,000 women in the U.S. go into labor and, unable to make it to the hospital, have an unplanned or unattended birth at home or in the car on the way to the hospital. Some of those women later make it to UT Southwestern.

It can be hard to get used to being at home with your baby after a stay in the newborn intensive care unit (also called NICU). You and your partner may have lots of different feelings about caring for your baby outside the hospital. For example, you may feel:

How will your cat react to having a new arrival in the house and how do you ensure cat and baby get along? Vet and behaviorist Francesca Riccomini offers advice on how to prepare your family feline for a new addition .

For many owners, their cat represents another family member and as such has equal access to all the resources their home has to offer. In feline terms, this includes human attention, which is often on demand whenever anyone is at home. So can cat and baby get along?

It is not unusual for a pet to be nurtured and even spoiled, becoming the 'baby' of the family. This is fine if it suits the cat's temperament and everyone involved, but problems can arise when a real baby is suddenly introduced into the household. The problems can be severe if the cat is mature and has had little, or only negative, experience of babies and young children, particularly during the important kitten socialization period of between two and seven weeks. Many of us acquire our cats when they are well past this stage or don't have the opportunity to introduce tiny kittens to small children. Although it is not impossible to make up for this lack of early experience in later life, it is best to make plans and preparations well in advance of a baby's birth.

How an individual cat will respond to a new arrival will depend upon genetics (breed and parentage as well as species), personality and experience. Sometimes, it has to be admitted that these do not predispose an individual to coexist harmoniously and safely with babies and young children. Some owners, after careful consideration of all the issues, decide that they cannot take the responsibility of keeping a particular pet when they have children and so find their cat a good home which is more suited to his needs. Sadly, the decision to relinquish a pet is not always so well considered and aggression towards children or urine spraying (for which the unprepared arrival of a baby can be a stimulus) is a not uncommon reason for cats to end up in need of rescue. It is not always possible to prevent such a sad outcome by pre-emptive action but it can often be avoided by careful thought and forward planning.

For the best possible chance of your extended family living happily together, two aspects need to be considered: the environment and the pet. Your cat needs to have his own bed, feeding and water dishes, toys, litter tray etc. Although these need to be sited somewhere convenient for all the humans in the house they also need to be in the right spot for the cat - the litter tray should be in a private position away from his food and away from areas of busy traffic, like the kitchen and hallway; the scratching post should be near an external door or close to where the cat already chooses to mark his territory by clawing. If possible, choose somewhere elevated for the cat to eat or rest, or an area which can be sealed off with a baby gate. This gives the cat a chance, at least, to escape the advances of a toddler. If the current locations of your cat's bed, litter tray and other requirements are going to prove impractical or unsuitable when the baby arrives, you will need to make changes now. It is important, particularly for an elderly cat, that these changes are made gradually.

Remember that the preferred feline method of dealing with something unsettling, which may represent a potential threat, is to hide, preferably in a high, dark, secluded place from which there is a good view, so that the situation can be assessed in safety. Such sanctuaries can easily be provided by putting cardboard boxes on their side, or igloo beds, on top of furniture or sturdy shelves. Provide a number of such retreats in various areas of your home, but especially where you will spend time with your baby and encourage their use by putting favored blankets or tasty treats in them.

Often the room which is to be the nursery is one to which the cat has been allowed free access. It is advisable for this to be prevented well before the baby actually takes up residence. To reduce adverse reaction to the change and to prevent 'barrier frustration', spray the closed door and its frame with Feliway or rub with 'facial cloths'. Don't forget that indoor cats will be more affected by even small changes in their environment, territory and lifestyle, than those with access to the outdoors.

The feline olfactory system is very sensitive and scent is an important means of communication in the domestic cat. Thus any disturbance in the scent profile of a cat's territory can have a major impact and cause real distress to a pet. This is frequently unrecognized, but explains why equipment for the baby, acquired in advance of his or her arrival, often becomes the target for urination or spraying, as a cat attempts to reassure itself by 'marking' the articles with its own scent in this way. Pheromone preparations can also, therefore, be usefully applied to such baby things as buggies, cots and high chairs. For this reason it is worth acquiring from friends and relatives as many everyday baby items as possible so that your cat can be introduced ahead of time to the wide range of often pungent odors he will later encounter! These may be minimal to us, with our poor sense of smell, but could represent a major stressful intrusion for a cat. Bringing the things into the home in a gradual and controlled way should not only reduce any aversive qualities associated with them by allowing our cat to adjust slowly to their presence, but should help you by creating opportunities to condition positive associations by, for instance, offering tasty food or indulging in a favorite game, when something first arrives.

It is worth remembering the essential 'rules' of never reassuring a pet's anxiety or fear, as this will only make it worse. But reinforce relaxed behavior by your cat in the face of any potential stressor with praise, petting, play or food. A cat's hearing, like its sense of smell, is very much better than ours, so it would be worth playing, initially at low volume, tapes of baby noises - crying, gurgling, squealing etc. Again, reward the behavior you wish to encourage and only increase the volume gradually as your cat indicates that he can cope. 041b061a72