Introducing pets to baby can be stressful

This is our Matisse…the cat in the portrait. Her name is Matisse. Not to be confused with a painting by the great artist Henri Matisse. (And yes, he is our cat’s namesake.) In the years before Truman, I spent good money to have an artist come to the house and paint my cat’s portrait. God, how I loved that cat.

She’s still alive, mind you. She’s almost 12 now, and ornery as hell. She tolerates only two people – Rick and me. She often hides when we have guests and sometimes sneaks out just to watch people creep around her house. If anyone tries to pet her or talk to her she growls or hisses. She’s always been that way. I think that’s one of the reasons I loved her so much, because she loved us and only us. Well, I think she loved us. Her love was always on her terms. She’s such a cat. I fretted about her when we left town for the weekend or if I went too long before changing her litter box. I bought her cat treats and I pestered her all the time because I just loved her so much.

Before I got pregnant we toyed with adopting a stray cat but Matisse was so freaked out we ended up giving the other cat to a neighbor. So when I did get pregnant, I worried how she would take to a new addition in the family. My worries were justified when we brought Truman home from from the hospital. Matisse was miserable mad. For the first few months we had Truman in a Pack-n-Play in our bedroom and Matisse would walk past it and hiss – even if Truman wasn’t in it. I was worried Matisse might jump in the Pack-n-Play and try to smother our little baby, but she didn’t even want to come anywhere close to him or the things he used.

Time passed and Matisse began to warm up to Truman to some degree. She gained a curiosity in him that was charming. She’d sniff him and then hiss and run off. When he began walking, he stalked her and she would run just out of his reach. When he cried, she would cry too – loud, frantic yowls. I’m not sure if she was worried or if the noise annoyed her. Probably the latter.

I changed too. I stopped smothering Matisse with kisses and began showering them on my son. And he responded with giggles, unlike my cat, who would whine and run away. And that crazy love I had for Matisse, honestly, sort of sucked under the tidal wave of deep emotional love I have for my son. It’s not that I stopped loving Matisse. It was just diluted.

In some ways, I think Matisse has grown to like Truman. She just doesn’t really want to admit it. She sits outside his bedroom door at night and won’t come downstairs until he is asleep. She loves watching him play. And sometimes, she doesn’t even yowl when we hold her down and he pets her.

I know now that there are things you can do to make the “new baby in the house” transition smoother for pets. It seems to me I knew this at the time but, I guess, I was in denial…worried that the alternative would be giving up Matisse. Luckily, we didn’t have to resort to such measures. (Like my neighbor did.) We’re all living somewhat peacefully now. (Never mind that Matisse is furious about Coco Conundrum!)

If you want tips, check out The Animal Health Channel’s pointers. If you’ve been-there-done-that, then let us know what worked for you, since I obviously have nothing else to offer on my own.

JWJourney