Well, it has now been three weeks since we brought home our new baby (hence my being delinquent for some time in any postings!). I was very worried about how Etta would handle things. She had been terrified by a child many years ago and I have since done a lot of training to help her feel more comfortable around kids. I even put off having a baby by several years (much to my mother-in-law's dismay!) to make sure Etta was as ready as I could make her.
On Wednesday July 8th, 2009 Gracie Mae joined our family. On Saturday July 11th, all of our training and prearations would begin being put to the test!
Upon arriving home I had my husband go in the house first and let the dogs outside. When he brought them back in I had him give them a frozen stuffed Kong to work on. He then came out to sit with the baby while I went in to greet them. I had not seen them since Tuesday so they were bound to be excited. When they settled down I went back outside and we all came in together.
My husband brought Gracie's hat to each of the dogs to smell. Neither was terribly interested and Etta even seemed offended by the smell!
All was fine until the baby cried and then something I never expected happened. Etta was completely bored with the baby and my Lab, Maggie, the dog I expected to be unphased, was totally over excited! I think the sound of the cry was much like a squeaky toy to her. At one point she lunged up to grab at(?)/see her while my husband was carrying her. He got very upset with her. I reminded him as stressful and scary as that was that we needed to keep things positive for her and not create any bad associations with the baby. We spent a few days ensuring that every time the baby cried one of us would attend to her and the other would send the dogs to their beds and give them a liver treat. It did not take long for the crying to have a different meaning to them! Their beds now became an exciting place to be.
At night I was a bit concerned that if the dogs were startled from a sound sleep by a distress cry we might have a race to the cradle. So I took my tall x-pen and surrounded the cradle with it. It was a pain to get the baby in and out of the cradle, but it was well worth the peace of mind. And I was quite pleased to discover that we did not need it. After one week we took it down.
Gracie had a rogh day one day last week. She is going through a growth spurt and she was quite hungry all the time and very cranky. I was very pleased with the dogs because Etta simply left the room to hang out somewhere quieter and Maggie, who had been so over the top excited about the crying at first, would simply look at the baby and then look back to me with a look on her face that could only say "Would you please DO something about that noise?!".
It has been very refreshing to see that hard work, preparation, prevention and staying positive has ensured as unstressful and joyous time as possible for everyone.
