My cat is no longer the center of my home

October 7, 2019 1:53 AM

We have a cat that we adore. We also have a new baby (4 months old) that we frankly adore a lot more. All our attention is on the baby and the cat is pretty neglected. How will this shake out?

Looking for advice and stories from others with cats and kids. Main issue is that our cat is extremely clingy and vocal (her only flaws, really), and will circle our legs for attention all the time, howl outside our door at night, and display other annoyances that drive parents of infants crazy. We feel guilty that we can’t pet and play with her as much as before, but also really irritated with her behavior in our sleep deprived exhaustion. If you were once a new parent with an existing well loved cat, when and how did you get things to settle down? If you decided to part with the cat (our last resort), what drove you to it?

Other pertinent info: At the moment, the cat and the baby are fully indifferent to each other, so at least there’s that. Still, we keep the cat out of the baby’s room (which is our bedroom) out of caution since she does tend to snap when overstimulated. She has free run of the rest of the house.

posted by redlines to Pets & Animals (16 answers total)

Have you considered getting your cat a cat? Two cats will meet a lot of each other's social needs.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:38 AM on October 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

When I was a kid, within just a few weeks of the newborn coming home, our cat ran away and we never found him. To the best of my recollection, this cat was neither clingy nor vocal, but did get plenty of attention from multiple humans prior to the newborn; after the newborn, I was the only one who maintained close to the same level of attention to the cat.

Seconding getting a cat for the cat. Even if they don't seem fond of each other, it makes a difference. My current girl cat has never been chummy with any other cat, and usually downright pissy toward them, yet during the short time after her previous roommate cat died and her new one arrived, her behavior changed markedly and not for the better—clinginess to an almost pathological degree, crying and being agitated at being left alone.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 2:41 AM on October 7, 2019

Response by poster: Oh, forgot to say, we can’t get another cat because she hates cats, and we just don’t want two cats.
posted by redlines at 2:44 AM on October 7, 2019

Can you hire a local child/teenager to come over every afternoon after school to play with the cat and work out some of its energy?
posted by Mrs. Rattery at 3:36 AM on October 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I recommend a feliway diffuser to chill your cat out during this stressful time.
posted by curtains at 4:00 AM on October 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

A second cat is the absolute last thing your family needs right now. Too much time you don’t have, too much potential for complications.

We have two cats and a now-kindergartener. The cats stay out of our bedroom. Our younger cat, who’s more outgoing and in-your-face, will get yelly if she doesn’t have enough interaction. Giving her a bit of attention before bed, either in the form of playtime or petting, gets her through the night. Sometimes she’ll still yell at night, and coming out of the bedroom for a minute to reassure her we’re still alive calms her down. Our older cat, who is more cautious and reluctant to compete for attention, hangs back and waits until only grownups are around to seek affection. I think he still misses being the only small adorable creature in the house, and I still feel a little sad about that.

It gets a little better going into the toddler years: the kid and cat can (very gently, very supervised-ly) interact, and there will likely be a couple hours between the kid’s bedtime and your own that the cat will capitalize on. If there are any regularly scheduled quiet moments like that now, give your cat a little extra attention if you can. Get lots of cat entertainment that requires minimal human involvement: fishing pole-style toys, cardboard boxes moved around frequently, feeding puzzle balls for treats, a window bird feeder. If your cat chases thrown toys, this is good for getting out a bunch of energy without much work on your part.

If you’ve got friends who are up for low-key baby hangouts (with no expectation of fanciness, entertainment, etc.) having them over can be good for both you and the cat.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:25 AM on October 7, 2019 [6 favorites]

Just chiming in as a sort of depressing Older You -- the situation may not improve. We have a cat who sounds like yours (clingy, can get vocal, would not tolerate another cat, was previously a spoiled "only child") and a 2.5-year-old child. Cat continues to be very needy and unhappy, we continue to resent it and have very little bandwidth to spare for her. Even her need for cuddles after the toddler is in bed, to me (as the mother and current preferred parent to the toddler) it feels like too much, I am touched out and don't want her ON ME. Plus since the baby was born she has developed a habit of constantly wanting to lick us and it drives me batty (I'm sure this is a nervous habit and I feel badly for being repulsed by it but I seriously cannot stand it. So this also makes me not want her to sit on my lap for pets because she always starts with the tiny licks).

We are considering rehoming her. I know she would be happier elsewhere and 90% of the time the emotions I feel toward her are exasperation/resentment/fatigue.

Strategies that we are currently employing that could be useful:
-Tryyyyy to find compassion/sympathy for her
-Give her pets and cuddles when we can tolerate it
-Get the kid involved (in a supervised way) in petting her. We also have a "treat ball" that the toddler loves to help fill each evening and then watch her play with, so that's doubly good because it's an activity for both of them. Our cat isn't much for playing with toys, but if yours is that's another thing a toddler could get into.
-We do let her sleep in our bed because she's not vocal at night and she's reasonably well-behaved in terms of giving us enough space in the bed. I think she definitely enjoys that closeness.
posted by Bebo at 4:47 AM on October 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Also chiming in to say that our situation did not improve, and we re-homed our cat when our kids were 3 and 1. Our cat just could not handle the noise and sudden movements of toddlers and lack of attention from the adult he liked. He'd always been skittish and nervous and got the point of overgrooming, yowling all night, digestive issues. Feliway didn't help. The vet had only a few recommendations but ultimately I couldn't deal with two toddlers and a needy cat. We found him a home with an older woman who could only have an indoor cat, and he thrived there. I don't recall a specific thing that drove us to make the decision to rehome him, but we tried to make it work for over three years so I think I just got worn down from exhaustion.

I still feel guilty, regularly, but ultimately I know that was 100% the right decision for both him and our family.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 5:12 AM on October 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

With our cats, we kind of evolved a family time on the couch that involved one parent holding the baby and the other dispensing cat attention in the evening. It was hard though, during that sleep-deprived, spaced-out, touched-out time. We did get some more toys that kept the cats engaged but at arm's length like the "fishing rod" toy. Once my son was crawling, so I was down on the floor with him anyway, it got a lot easier to pet cats and play "balled up foil" games with them. I also had friends over who provided cat laps.

It also helped that we had more than one, so no judgement if you find you have to rehome eventually. But in our case, we stuck it out and our cats enjoyed a good older-cat life. It took a team approach.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:20 AM on October 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Our three cats lived with my in-laws for our kid's first five months or so, and one of them ended up staying there permanently when everyone involved agreed that the situation was only getting worse from his perspective. He was a very picky cat who wanted lots of attention but only on certain terms (including nipping/clawing when overstimulated), and we had ongoing doubts about our ability to meet those terms while keeping the baby safe. I wish we'd been able to make it work out but it really was the best choice for him. His quirks were lovingly indulged for the remainder of his years and we were able to visit and let our child have a relationship with him that didn't compromise either dependent creature's happiness or safety. Our cats who came home were as different from one another as they were from him, but both in much more child-compatible ways, and we all settled into new equilibria fairly quickly.
posted by teremala at 5:57 AM on October 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

We had two cats at the time we had a baby. Neither cat ever said so much as boo to the baby. Cats are wired to be terrified of kittens because kittens come with super scary mama cats, so our kid never got scratched. (When kid got old enough to take her own photos on an old ipad, I found some hilarious photos of a very resigned looking kitty in various dresses. And yet, no scratching.)

Both cats have, with vet approval, the ability to go out when they like. (Neither cat is any good at catching birds but do help keep the mice out of the basement or this policy would change.) Because they aren't trapped in a boring house with a loud smelly baby, I think it helps with their overall tolerance and need for stimulation. I agonized way too much over whether or not we should let the cats go outside but the vet said "look, your cat can have a long, miserable life indoors or a shorter, happy life outdoors." (Then the cats went on to live basically forever.)

One cat rehomed himself before the baby was about a year old, long story. There wasn't a turning point exactly, since it all unfolded over a several month period, but as soon as a third neighbor clued me in that second neighbor was claiming she owned our cat (that was still coming home to dinner and to sleep on our bed every night!), I did go talk it out with them and we worked out an agreement to make cat Officially Theirs. It was the right answer for everyone. Kitties rehome themselves when they're feral, so it's not an alien idea to their little brains, and I think the cat figured out that we were accepting his plan when I moved all his stuff over to the neighbor's house - he never tried to come into my house again, although if I were in the yard he'd come say hi. I also transferred the vet records, not that the cat appreciated having a continuous medical history.

As for two cat, I remember a lot of sitting exhausted on a couch dangling a feather or a cat-dancer fishing wand kind of toy. Also we let the cat sleep on our bed, and I remember the cat sitting on my husband while I was nursing the baby. The cat figured out how to get her needs met around the baby pretty quickly, and it was up to us to recognize that compromise and meet her halfway.

Once kid was old enough to hold a peacock feather and dangle it, maybe around four or five months? That was when Twocat suddenly understood why we'd had a baby. Obviously, it was to entertain the cat. So handing the peacock feather to the baby and letting her wave it was the turning point for the cat. And chasing the cat with the feather was one of the things that motivated the kid to first crawl, then walk. Twocat did learn to think of the kid as part of the colony and put up with kid shenanigans. We've never declawed our cats, although we keep the nails trimmed, and we've taught the kid some basic kitty protections, and then we decided we were OK with the risks versus the benefits and now we've got adorable videos of a toddler waddling around a house waving feathers for the kitty.

Getting a second cat in my experience has never, ever, ever worked, to the point I will never take that advice ever again and fully support you in not getting another cat. Trust that gut. I've also held on for longer than I should have but once we did rehome, it was the right answer. The animal would have been happier if I'd figured it out sooner. I see the same thing with my friends, who lived with difficult (as in, attacking their kid) animals for YEARS before rehoming. In a neighbor's case, the animal was kept so long that the only option, after it got worse and worse, was euthanasia. In my case, I was so blindly "committed to the animal as forever home," I wasn't seeing the animal's clear communication. I am happy that all the animals for which I feel responsibility are happy, regardless of whether or not they sleep in my house.

If I were you, I'd give the cat a few more months and try to help the kitty because the difference between even four months and six months is huge (your baby might be able to hold a peacock feather or a cat fishing pole from a high chair as soon as now! and it's SO CUTE), and keep talking to the vet. In our experiences, telling our vet that we want the animal to be happy and feel safe but not miserable or in pain has opened up very productive lines of conversation. Vets are comfortable taking more risks than you might realize. A vet can help you decide, especially in a sleep-deprived state, when the issues are fixable and when they aren't. Your pediatrician might have good insight, too. They'll both understand that baby is priority and this is a tough time that does get easier, and that your job as parent is to balance the needs of all the family members, and that no one who is outside your family can decide the right answer for you.
posted by arabelladragon at 8:17 AM on October 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

I took about 12 weeks for our clingy, vocal cat to stop constantly annoying us all the time with a newborn, but it also took the baby 12 weeks to sleep anywhere but her father's arms, so... we ended up having to do a split shift where I slept while he stayed awake with the baby, and the cat slept with me, and then I stayed up with the baby while he slept. Whoever was awake when the cat needed attention played with him (ribbon, catnip mouse tossing) when possible. The cat's sleep schedule got messed up just like ours did, if there is such a thing with cats, because the humans were awake at different hours than the ones we used to be awake for.

At 12 weeks we moved the baby into a bassinet in our room and kept the door open so the cat could sleep on our bed, and we used a LOUD white noise machine to drown out possible yowling. At 18 weeks we started transitioning the baby into her own bedroom with the door closed (plus a monitor) and that was when the light at the end of the tunnel was visible, with the cat sensing that things were going "back to normal." When the baby started sleeping through the night at about 20 weeks or so, the cat could really tell and we were better rested as well, so more apt to play with him.

There is definitely a new normal around here, at 10 months. But I think our cat was picking up on our sleep cycle changes with the baby and had previously associated awake time with time to play or at least availability to play, when that was just not the case. Once everybody was awake during the daytime hours and asleep at nighttime hours, it got better and the cat seems happy again.
posted by juniperesque at 8:37 AM on October 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

15 minutes of play time with a cat before bed with solve a broad spectrum of behavior issues with most cats. Use something highly fun and interactive like a wand toy. It's an easy time investment and worth a try.
posted by agregoli at 9:24 AM on October 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

HIPPO'ing.

Our cat will not tolerate a second cat either. She was totally freaked out when we brought our newborn home 15 months ago. She would attack us whenever the baby cried, and didn't know what to make of the baby at all. She was skittish, jumpy, and scratched at the slightest provocation. Things have gotten better.

Since that time, now she's much more affectionate at night with us, after our toddler is asleep. It helps that our daughter cries less, and the pitch of her cry has changed as she's aged. We think it was literally the sound of the cry that would set the cat off.

Give it time, and play with the cat when you can. Any attention you give sends the message that she's still part of the solar system, even if the planets don't orbit around her ; )
posted by onecircleaday at 9:32 AM on October 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Mrs. Rattery and curtains both have great ideas: a Feliway diffuser might help calm the cat, and hiring a local child (or niece, nephew, or cousin) to come play with kitty a few times a week. I was a cat-loving child and would have jumped at the chance to come play with a neighbor's kitty for a few hours a week for a nominal sum.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 4:43 PM on October 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

I house sat for a needy cat, and it settled right down once it discovered my heated throw rug. Then it wouldn't leave it, even when it was turned off. You could try bribing the kitty with a magic heated spot, all of it's own. You can buy pet specific ones, but mine was just a cheap plush one designed for humans, luckily washable.
posted by kjs4 at 3:56 PM on October 9, 2019