One Big Pack

I remember before we had our baby reading post after post about pregnancy, dogs, and making it all work.When I told people that I was pregnant many responded that she would take over my world and the dogs would come second. Uh huh, not in this house.

I was hyper aware of how important it would be to integrate the baby into our family because we have two big dogs, one of which hasn’t had a good attitude about children in the past (ahm..Kaya…). I even went so far as to suggest removing the standard wooden door to the nursery and replacing it with a screen door so that the dogs could always see in (this idea was vetoed by dear hubby).  I did tell my dear husband, however, that it was incredibly important to me the dogs be a part of all elements of the baby’s day-to-day. They had to know that she was just another member of our big silly, ridiculous pack. So they are allowed in the nursery, they are allowed to snooze on the couch when the baby is snoozing on the couch. I make it a point to have the baby say “hello!” to the dogs every morning when she wakes up so that seeing and hearing them, booping them on the nose and giving them butt scratches (with our help and supervision of course) is part of her daily routine.

The wonderful thing that has started to develop is that I can feel the baby taking joy and comfort in our pack. She giggles at the sight of a cat’s tail swooshing by. She smiles when she sees the dogs come into her room in the morning to greet her. She relaxes when they relax. I can’t say that I’m 100% prepared for what’s to come next (read baby crawling and walking…yikes) but for now I can confidently say that I think the dogs are starting to see that we are all one big pack. Stay tuned!

 

 

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