I remember before little Alfie-poopies came along (yes, one of his many, many, nicknames) we got a lot of questions. The most common ones were:

– How do you think the dog will react to the baby?

– How will you introduce the baby to your dog?

Here is what we thought about it and how we introduced our fur-baby to our human baby..

We started talking to Milo (the dog) about it very early. Yes, I’m a true believer dogs understand us far more than we might think. I started telling him he would become a big brother and I talked to him on our walks about the baby in my belly daily.

To be honest, Milo understood very early there was something different with me. He stopped jumping up on me very early in my pregnancy and stopped playing with me as well. One thing that was interesting was how overprotective he became. Didn’t matter if it was a lady or boy dog, most dogs weren’t allowed too close to me. Some dogs weren’t even allowed to look my way.. Oh I know. Maybe a bit much. But it’s true – he got VERY overprotective towards other dogs.

I had this idea, I’m sure I read it somewhere, that I wanted to make sure Milo got to meet the baby properly. After all, Milo was the first baby in this house (we live in a flat but still). And as Milo is such a mamas boy I thought it’d be important I wasn’t the one carrying the baby through the door.

Why?

As I had been away from Milo for four days I wanted us to be able to say hello to each other properly with lots of cuddles and kisses. I didn’t want to have to push him away due to the newborn baby in my arms and risk upsetting Milo or even worse to make him jealous.

So what we did was to make sure milo was at home before I got there (he had been at Jacks parents). We also made sure Jack was carrying baby Alfie and that I was the first one through the door.

Oh goodness Milo was so excited. He was so happy to see me but also very excited to see and meet the baby. Like a true Samoyed (that’s his breed) he just wanted to kiss the baby all over and climb up on Jacks lap to be as close to the baby as possible. As it was a totally new little human with no immune system in place what so ever we didn’t allow him to kiss Alfie in the face. We did allow him to kiss on the side of his head as well as hands and feet. And that just never ended. And still hasn’t 🙂

Today Alfie is a sturdy baby (he is actually, a big lump of a baby. Love his chunkyness) and has had all of his baby jabs so the occasional kiss on the face is very much allowed. And Alfie seems to like it very much. Or he is very good at faking it. Either way he smiles a lot as soon as he sees Milo. Alfie has started reaching out for Milo when he walks by. And in return Milo tries to share his toys every now and then. He puts them by Alfie’s feet if Alfie is sitting in his baby bouncer. It is too cute to handle! I think the two of them will get up to lots of fun and messiness as Alfie gets older and can move around on his own more.

I can tell Milo loves Alfie very much. As soon as Alfie has a big cry, as babies do from time to time, Milo comes running to make sure Alfie is ok. Actually, one time we were giving Alfie Calpol (paracetamol for kids) and he was screaming his head off as he absolutely hates it. Milo came running in to the bedroom where Jack and I were trying our very best to get the medicine in to this tiny human and I swear Milo was telling us off. He started talking (no I’m not a total mental case, he was making noises and we call it talking) and pawing us. Not clawing. Pawing. I honestly believe he was trying to get us to stop doing whatever we were doing to Alfie as he clearly wasn’t liking it. Bless that doggy.

I think Alfie and Milo are going to be an amazing little team and probably get up to lots of fun trouble in the future.

That’s how we introduced our dog Milo to our baby Alfie. And it was really great, quite straight forward and fairly easy. I know this might not be the case for everyone and maybe not all dogs are as welcoming of new little humans if they’re used to being number one. Personally I think it’s important to really think about what your fur-baby is like and try to plan the introduction as easygoing as you can. Don’t make too much of a fuss about it. And don’t forget to make sure your dog still gets a lot of attention after the baby has arrived. Jealousy is real with dogs and I think we’ve all heard scary stories. Let’s try our best to not create more of those.

Enjoy your day and hopefully you’ll get to sleep well, even if it’s only five minutes at a time.

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