Hi all, looking for pointers on introducing a newborn to our dog. He is a 3.5 years old labrador. We expect to have the baby home in the next 4-5 days. To begin with, we got a baby doll home yesterday, sprinkled a lot of baby powder on it and bought it home. Max (our lab), who never jumps on me, jumped as soon as we opened the door and he saw the baby (doll) in my hands. We let him sniff the doll, played baby crying sounds on Youtube and acted like it's a real baby by putting it in the baby crib, etc. which is in the bedroom that we have partitioned with baby gates. Max was looking a lil excited and stressed initially and was sitting religiously outside the room. He is better today as we have not changed, and not plan to change, his routine (diet, walks, play and exercise). We plan to continue this routine for the next 4-5 days to get him acquainted to having a baby around. It'd be really helpful to know if this is the right approach and if there is anything else that we need to do. Also, I've read that the dog can't be allowed to be near newborns for the first 3-4 months for 2 reasons. 1. it can cause infections to the newborn 2. can lead to inadvertent injury to the baby It'd be great if someone can validate this as well. I have a few friends who have condemned this approach and told me that i am taking undue stress and passing on that stress to Max, that i should let Max sniff (and even lick) the newborn's feet once he/she comes home and let Max me in the same room as the baby and give Max the due attention. Really confused and could really use some advice and help. Many thanks in advance!!
I have a 3 year old Labrador and a 16 week baby. We just carried on as normal with the dog. Brought the baby home, let him have a good sniff and inspection and he’s been fine since. I don’t leave them in the same room unsupervised and don’t let the dog lick his hands or face but all settled quite quickly. We certainly haven’t done anything major - just tried to keep everything as normal as possible for Stanley and he just accepted his new baby brother quite happily.
Thanks a lot for your response. Max used to sleep on our bed until a couple of months back. Would it be advisable to allow him in our room and sleep on the floor? We were a little concerned about the dog hair and any other infections that the proximity might cause.
Hi @Saurabh It has been found that children that grow up with dogs have fewer allergies or less likely to develop asthma. So there is no need to isolate the dog and the baby on those health needs. The need for "isolation" is just that one should not leave a child and dog unsupervised until the child is at least 10 years old. It's to prevent dog bites, the dog jumping up and knocking the baby over, etc. It's not to prevent dog hair getting on the baby.
I would have no chance of keeping the baby away from dog hair with my Labrador. I’ve even spotted a rogue one in his bottle once or twice, the baby is absolutely fine. I only don’t leave them in the room together when I’m not there, the rest of the time we’re all together. But my dog does sleep downstairs, but he always has.
We did the same as @JenBainbridge and continued on with life as normal for our lab when we brought our newborn home. At the time, our lab Ella was 9months old. Now she's 4 and our son is 3.5. We allowed Ella to be involved in everything so that she never felt like the new baby was pushing her out. I have great memories of how much she loved bath time as we'd often let her jump in the bath afterwards for a splash There's not much you can do about Labrador hair - it gets everywhere. Funnily enough, our son has had some terrible asthma issues even though there's no family history. I don't for a second believe it's related to having a dog though (and neither do the experts).
