Dogs and babies...

So today's post is really going to be about introducing a dog to a baby. I purposely bought a dog that was good with kids. I have a Yorkie… and she is 7 

pounds. She is the baby of the family until baby W came along. 

Everyone kept asking how is Penelope going to be with baby W? Our answer was she'll be just fine. Then as we get closer I started to get a little worried. So we decided to do any normal parent would do we decided to torture bug the dog. And I mean it in a loving way. We took all of Baby W's things and assembled them in the house. For example we put his crib up but we let her be involved. Now how can a dog be involved in putting a group together? It's easy we would play with her toys in the babies room. We are playing in there and get her used to that room. We would allow her to smell the pieces of the crib. When we put the sheets on the bed and she smells them when we put in the new glider she played on it. Now I know it sounds a little weird that you let a dog and the babies things but they're going to be exposed to each other their entire life. 

So why not start now? So after that we would go in take those things out that baby W would have and let her smell it. The big one came on we were downstairs and we made his little swingset and we use MamaRoo. We let her sit in the MamaRoo we let her smell the MamaRoo, we let her balance and sit. We pretty much let her get involved with everything that we are doing when it was related to the baby. When I went in to labor, I had my parents go and pick up Penelope. They had her for three days while I was in the hospital. When we finally brought baby W home -we had met my dad outside of my house. The reason why we did this was because it was a neutral ground, and I wanted Penelope to be able to smell baby W. She smelled him while he was in his car seat and then together they walked in. Of course my husband carried the car seat in, and my dad had Penelope and I just pretty much watched the whole thing. We walked in the house and we put baby W right and his MamaRoo  Once we got him in his MamaRoo- Penelope of course jumped right up to look at him. This instantly became of our favorite pictures of Penelope. [See picture above]. After that Penelope wanted nothing to do with baby W. In fact she would go and be with the person who did not have baby W. This lasted a whole four days. She was especially annoyed when she realized he was sleeping in our bedroom.

She was checking on me at 3 am. <3 Look
at those sleepy eyes.

After four-five days passed, Penelope finally got the courage up to smell him. Wes and I stayed away and watched from a distance. She licked his hand and he opened his eyes. He looked at her and then she went to town licking his feet. It took Penelope about a month to start sleeping on my side of the bed again. It also took her only two times to get run over by his stroller for her to realize she can't walk in front of it. 2 months later - Penelope loves baby W. When we aren't looking- she will try to lay on top of him (probably to kiss him to death). 

Did we have some hiccups? Of course...Penelope was the only baby for 3 years. However, I really think she is enjoying baby W. Well...maybe not when he cries at 2 am. Ha! What did we do that would be helpful to you?

1. Introduce the dog to the things that will be in your house.

2. If your dog is afraid of wheels (ours is) then roll the stroller around the house. Don't go around the neighborhood...that's weird. Then people will walk up to you to see the baby and the stroller will be empty.

3. Have them meet outside your house. It's a neutral territory for your dog.

4. Let your dog get the courage to smell and play with the baby. Don't shove the dog onto the baby. The dog could have resentment, or worse anger...

Hopefully this helped you! Did you do anything special with your dog? Leave comments below!