i am pregnant and my dog sleeps with me

[carver1102]

ok...for starters our furbaby is our baby. he makes sure to protect his mommy by him sleeping to the left of me and my dh to the right. however, i am pregnant. and i am not sure what to do about brutus sleeping with us. not even sure if i want him to continue to sleep with us after the baby is born. he sheds a lot, no matter how much i brush him or bathe him. my comfertor is always saturated in brutus hair. i know the baby will sleep in the nursery, but i am sure sometimes i will have the baby with me in the bed. i know all the dog hair can not be good for a baby. and i don't want brutus to feel like i am chosing the baby over him. brutus will continue to remain in my house. i am not getting rid of him, after all he was my first baby. but i don't want him feeling neglected. does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[hanley]

I don't think you have anything to worry about. Why make Brutus sleep else where, his hair doesn't hurt you & I don't think it will hurt your baby unless it might have allergies. Babies adapt to our lifestyles very fast. Brutus may change his mind about sleeping with you when the baby comes, he might want to stay close by the baby & sleep on the floor in the babies room. Brutus will be curious when you bring the baby home, so let him smell & see the baby.Try not to worry everything will work out fine & congrats on your new baby. Hanley

 

[SandyHG55654]

If you want Brutus out of the bed it's best to start changing the routine before the baby comes so he doesn't feel as if he did something wrong or it makes him feel neglected. Try and make special alone time with him after the baby comes even if it's just snuggling, Good luck.

 

[Louise501]

I agree, I don't think you will feel like having Brutus on the bed when your pregnancy advances and probably not after the baby comes (I can still remember how I felt when I was pregnant with my youngest!) you will probably need the space, emotionally and physically. Maybe try now to get him to sleep in his own bed so that he does not connect the 2 events and cause him to feel negative about it.

 

[carver1102]

thanks guys...i might go ahead a try to make brutus start sleeping in his bed. however, we have tried that before, and it does not work. he poops on the floor when we kick him out of bed, knowing we don't want to clean up after potty trained 2 year old. maybe now that he is three it won't be so bad. (wishful thinking). well i will get on another forum and see how to go about brutus sleeping in another bed. thanks again!

 

[boxers4life2001]

Both of our "kids" (boxers) sleep in bed with us. I just had my DD in November and my two remained in our bed my entire pregnancy. I actually could not sleep if they weren't in bed with me. Yes they shed a lot but that doesn't matter to me, I just keep changing the sheets. My DD slept in our room, in a bassinet, for the first 3 months and never had a problem with the fur.

If you do decide to not let Brutus continue sleeping in your bed, I do agree that you need to be making that transtion now. You do not want him to associate the bed change with the new baby.

 

[roxygrl]

I understand your concern I am due in June, and was worried about having the dog in the bed. We have since taught her (Fur baby) that she can come sleep in the bed after we are awake. We are still lying in bed but we are awake. I was having a really hard time sleeping with her in the bed. Have you ever notice that they love to sleep sideways in the bed? I got the worst leg cramps when she was sleeping with us.
She has her own little blankie and bed at the foot of our bed and she is now content to sleep there until morning.
Side note, I read somewhere that after you have the baby and you are still in the hospitol have your DH bring home a blanket with the new baby's scent and let your dog smell it so she is used to the smell before you bring the little one home. I also say the babys name all the time and show my fur baby her crib and stuff.
Just an idea.

 

[maddyfish]

Serious dominence problems here, esp. the defecating on the floor when he doesn't get his way. He sees YOU as his dog, and you're in for trouble with a new baby. The bed thing is just the tip of the iceberg. Need to get control of this ANIMAL (not furbaby) now.

 

[rog1006]

Serious dominence problems here, esp. the defecating on the floor when he doesn't get his way. He sees YOU as his dog, and you're in for trouble with a new baby. The bed thing is just the tip of the iceberg. Need to get control of this ANIMAL (not furbaby) now.

Maddyfish:
This comment is harsh and out of line. These are the types of comments that make people think that they should give up their dogs when they get pregnant (as many do anyway.) You gave no advice or direction to help to the OP and while I understand what you're saying about alpha principles etc. obviously not everyone will.

carver1102: You are NOT in trouble as there is plenty of time to work with your furbaby. I would go ahead and move him to the floor (as it sounds like that's what you want to do). Where does he defecate? When we were working on my dogs moving to the floor, we got them nice soft beds and put them on the floor by our nightstands. They would try to sneak up and night, so what we started doing was to put a leash on them and wrap it around the nightstand, so they learned that was where they needed to be. I would think that would also help with his defecating as he won't go in his bed. (make sure the leash isn't too long so he can go anyway) I would also start working with him to instill his place in the pack so that when you add your little one to your home, he knows where he is in the pack--which is at the bottom. I would work with him on healing, staying, sitting, etc and give him lots of praise and positive attention. This should continue (even if it's just for a few minutes a day) when you bring home the baby.

I just had a baby a few months ago, and we did a LOT of work with our three dogs and worked with a trainer to make sure we set boundaries that were clear and that they understood 100%. We believe in setting our dogs up for success and the only way to do that is to make sure they clearly understand what they are allowed and not allowed to do. My dogs are not perfect, but they have been incredible with my son and about a year ago, I would not have said that. Start working with him now.

Good Luck and please post if you have any other questions or concerns. And BTW THANK YOU for loving your furkid so much that you're asking these questions NOW and actually thinking ahead.

 

[ladyluck_t]

I would also like to recommend a book to you (and Christine, you might like to look this over for when your rescue adopts to families it covers kids from pregnancy through mid-age ~10-12 yrs). This is the best time to get it

Childproofing your Dog by Brian Kilcommons

I have read the book it is very good, I just loaned it to a young family with an 18mo' old human that wanted to adopt a dog from us. They said they found it very informative and helpful without being alarming. The last thing you need is alarming.

As far as pooping on the floor when kicked off the bed. If this only happened once (which is usually all it takes for most humans) dont jump to the conclusion that the two events were connected. Perhaps he had something to eat that didnt agree, or perhaps he "forgot" to go that last time outside. Usually, It is very rare for dogs to "show you how they feel by defecating". Most of those events are explained by other factors.

My female one time started peeing on my bed, at the same time I had just gotten a new foster and had just adopted my son's puppy. So I thought that she was peeing to show me that she was unhappy. We left shortly there after to go visit my parents house (2day drive away) and she was peeing everywhere in the dog run my parents put in. But since my sis just got a new dog and visits sometimes too, I just assumed that she was "re-marking" her territory since my sis's dog is a female. Then 3 days later she urinated on my parents floor while I was showering (she is 6 yr old, so that was totally unusual) and it had blood in it. I rushed her to the vet and found out she had a severe urinary tract infection. All the behaviors that I was attributing to events around us at that time, were really signs of the UTI.

Point being, what may make sense as a cause-effect to us, may not be what is going on with the dog. And as a mathematician, I know that one or two occurances of any event does not give enough statistical data to correlate a cause to an effect.