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Dog gets anxious when DS makes noises - what to do?

umdbrideumdbride
in D.C. Area Babies

Our dog is super mild-mannered and a bit on the nervous side in general, so far she's been great with DS and all the new stuff around the house.  However, she seems to get really upset when she hears him make all kinds of noises, from his grunting or fidgeting in the pack and play to when he poops or passes gas (because right now that's pretty loud). 

The dog sleeps in our room and at night if the baby makes even a small noise, the dog will get out of her bed and pace around our bed and sit on the floor right by my head and stare and grunt at me until I do something. I know the baby is fine so I'll try to get the dog to come to bed and settle down, she'll jump in bed but she stays really unsettled, getting up and down with any noise from DS.  Any tips on what to do about this?  The baby is loud enough sometimes, with an upset dog on top of it, it's getting hard to get a good night's sleep. Plus, I really hate to see the dog so upset about the baby.

I don't think kicking the dog out of our room would help, she likes to be near us and the baby, I think she'd just sit by the door and pace and grunt out there so I'd still hear it.  I've thought about anxiety meds, but I'd really rather not medicate the dog if there are other options.

TIA!

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Re: Dog gets anxious when DS makes noises - what to do?

  • belizeitornotbelizeitornot

    I would say to ignore her during the day when this happens. By giving her attention when she does it, you're reinforcing that it's appropriate behavior. If you don't acknowledge her when it happens, she'll eventually stop. For nighttime, I'd seriously consider having her sleep somewhere else for the short term.

    We had this issue when H would cry (most often on the changing table)- the dog would flip out and try to jump up to see what was wrong. We just hip checked her back to the ground and ignored her. After a while she learned the baby crying was nothing to be concerned about.

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  • SofkaSofka

    is this a female dog? our "special" female acted very very strange (for her) when DD came home from the hospital, she actually got very maternal. She usually ignores everyone, goes and hides and never comes out when someone (even our family who she knows) comes over but she acted so differently when DD was born! Every time DD made a sound, she'd come over and, I swear, she cared! She'd whine and it was as if she wanted to make DD better. It was actually very sweet and so surprising! We'd reassure her the baby was OK and after awhile the dog stopped doing it. The male dog was also very interested but never "cared."

     

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