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November 2012 Moms
Our first family photo!
The great pet debate!
I have not seen a pet post lately, and this isn't meant to hurt anyone's feelings.
DH and I have an almost 10 year old cat. He was our only "child" for 8 years before DD1 came along. He was so CUTE during my first pregnancy... loving on my belly, snuggling me when I was sick, etc. I loved him so much! When I was first pregnant I would see pet posts about how things might change once the baby came and was a firm believer that this would not happen to us. I LOVED Whiskers!
That being said, the moment DD1 came into our house, the cat was (and still is) brushed aside. I have actually lost almost all loving feelings for him. He's an annoyance! It's like all of the hairballs, litter box issues, and cat fur all over my house suddenly drive me crazy. DD1 LOVES him, but he hates her. It's probably because she treats him like that little red head girl on Tiny Toons, Elmira. I think the only reason that I'm tolerating him at this point is because she and DH like him so much. DD1 also loves puppies (what almost-two-year-old doesn't?!), and DH keeps saying, "If she asks me for one, I won't have the willpower to say no." He got the look of death from me.
I think my main point is that I did not anticipate that the needs of the baby would so profoundly affect the care of our cat. He requires so little, but there just isn't anything left in me to give.
STMs, have your feelings toward your pets changed since your child was born? I'm not writing this to "scare" FTMs, but it was something that I did not expect and I like sharing advice about what you could "possibly" expect.
ETA: Our cat is not neglected in any way. DH still cares for him and loves on him. I am only stating that MY feelings have changed.
Our first family photo!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: The great pet debate!
We have a 5 year old yellow lab, Lily. She is, and always has been, the best and sweetest dog anyone could ever ask for. She was an only "child" for 2 1/2 years until DS was born. I don't remember exactly WHEN DH and I started to resent Lily, but this past summer has been especially difficult. She was just so annoying all the time!
I differ from you in that DH actually had much stronger feelings of annoyance than I did. I still feel guilty a good bit of the time because I used to just lay there and obsess over her. DH has considered giving her to MIL on several occasions. And over the summer, I was ready to. I just can't see taking her away from DS. He's really started to bond with he lately.
I hope I can find the love for poor Lily before DD comes!
My feelings didn't change but DH's did. It had the opposite affect on me because this dog was the center of our and inlaws attention, and after DS was born he got brushed aside by everyone but me. Inlaws used to come over just to see him, but now they just found him annoying. Which logically I understand, but it used to break my heart. When they'd come over to visit the baby I'd sit in the back room with our dog and just give him lots of attention. He just seemed so human to me with those big sad eyes.
This thread makes me pretty sad :-( Though some of the responses from other STMs is uplifting. I love my dogs dearly, and when I brought them home, I made a commitment to love and care for them until the end. I have several friends with pets before kids, and their love hasn't seemed to change toward their pet. The way they spend their time is different, but their commitment to their pet(s) is the same.
I believe that my capacity to love isn't conditional or limited to convenience. And I will not model that type of love in front of my child.
This, although I don't have friends with pets and children. I first read this when I got up the morning and I cried a little and then went into full on panic and deny mode. I love my dog. He is my "child before children", and my biggest concern in bringing home baby is my ability to make him still feel loved while providing for my newborn. My dog has so much personality, and my vision of him reduced to just "the dumb dog" is heartbreaking. He would be so sad, and he wouldn't understand why mommy didn't love him anymore.
I want my child to learn the love for animals that my husband and I have, and our home doesn't feel like home without my dog in it. Does he frustrate me and pose an inconvenience sometimes? Absolutely, but babies do that too.
Please tell me that it's totally possible for me to just integrate baby into our lives without giving my poor little puppers the brush-off?
I find the original poster...cold. It actually makes me very angry to think some people just don't have enough love in their hearts for all of their family members, be they two or four-legged.
As someone who has worked with my local humane society fostering and helping adult animals who have been rescued or dropped off from neglectful homes (often because a baby comes into the picture) this just breaks my heart. You made the choice to bring an animal into your life, and you owe it to them to treat them with respect, kindness and compassion right to the very end. If you can't do that, I would say you have some serious emotional damage. How we treat those who are weaker than us is a true measure of our humanity.
Exactly WSS, especially the bolded part. I realize that my time and attention will change but I trust my heart to be able to grow enough to accomodate LO without pushing aside any feelings I have toward the sweet beings that I've raised from three weeks, seven weeks, and nine weeks respectively over the past eight and a half years.
V|V TSP V|V
DH is already worried about Lilly getting less QT with us after baby comes. He has already lined up a person who can come take her for extra runs and swims. And he gets upset when people keep telling us that she will be "just a dog" after the baby comes. I'm sure things will change somewhat, but I sure hope she's just as important a part of our family as she is now.
Somewhere I read something that pointed out that we humans have all these different aspects to our lives; family, work, friends, sports, church, tv shows, whatever. But our pets only have us.
"A new baby is like the beginning of all things--wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities."
Agreed. We have 4 cats. I don't expect our love for our cats to be comparable for what we will feel for our child, but I would like to think that we will be able to find love and time for our pets even when Lucas is here.
I do get slightly annoyed sometimes by our one little cat who is very attached to me, and I do worry about how she will react to the baby... But I try to remember that she was probably abused/neglected by the way she acts, and we are the only reason that she knows love, so why shouldn't she be attached to us? I'd just like to think that we'll have love for everyone, even if our love for the pets is different than what we had before, and that we will pass our love, compassion, and appreciation for animals on to our son.
We've had a somewhat unique situation with our dog so there's been a lot of mixed feelings. Our dog used to be the the sweetest, best-behaved, low-maintenance and loving dog ever. I'm not exaggerating,our friends would literally argue over who would watch her if we went out of town! We had her for almost 8 years before having our DD. The tough part started before baby arrived. Very sadly, when I was 5 months pregnant with my now 2-yr old, my dog suddenly overnight went blind. We came home from work and she was literally running into everything and it just broke our hearts. We took her to several specialists to have them all confirm she was 100% blind, and had some kind of very rare retinal detachment than just randomly happens sometimes. There's nothing you can do to change or improve, only help them adjust. Not only did she become somewhat depressed and sedentary, it also severely affected her eating and drinking and bathroom habits (common with the disease and ailment she has.) She suddenly couldn't get enough to eat or drink, and had accidents everywhere, all the time!!! She STILL does. Per recommendation from our vet, we even rescued another dog to try to help her adjust. Our dog has improved some in terms of her activity level (she follows the other dog around), but has had no improvement on the other fronts. We have to strictly limit her intake, and she now has more accidents than ever! It was horrible to have a new crawling baby on the floor, when I knew I had cleaned up like 100 accidents over the past month. WE literally shampoo our carpets constantly. Now, our poor dog seems to be regressing again and I'm so frustrated and saddened by it. We have to keep her out in the fenced in yard, or gated in to the laundry room pretty much at all times to keep her from having accidents all over the rug. So, anyway, sorry for babbling, but needed to give a little background...
I'm struggling with my feelings for my dog. I LOVE her every bit as much as I once did, but I am beyond frustrated with the situation. I dread thinking about what the future holds with her and what decisions we have ahead of us. But my current DD and DD due in a couple months will have priority of my attention, as they should.
I guess I should mention that I did not actually make that commitment. DH made it for me while I was at work one day. We were 18 years old and they let him adopt a cat (we were not married)! While I loved the cat dearly before and treated him as if he were my child, that is simply not the case anymore. I don't have time to do that. DH still loves and cares for him just as much as he ever did, so our cat is not completely neglected. I still feed him, brush him, vacuum up his hair, give him the hairball treatments, and make sure his cat genie is running properly. I just didn't take his needs into consideration when we decided to have children. I still like the cat and pet him every now and then, but as another poster said, he's so clingy and I just want some alone time.
Our first family photo!