The cats reacting to the early days of having a human baby sister
Hello everybody!
I hope you’re having a good day wherever you are? I am writing to you from Cape Town, South Africa. I have introduced my two beautiful cats on HIVE, and you can see that post here: (@jasperdick/pets-indoor-cats-get-to)
Here are some pictures of them in case you missed that one:
This is Pickle (Mr. Pickles). He is a mix of ragdoll and Devon Rex, which means he is handsome, playful, affectionate, vocal and intelligent. It also means he has lovely thick, short fur like velvet. He’s a bit of a daddy’s boy!
And here’s Bunny (Missy Bun-Buns)! She is a bit on the small side for a ragdoll, but definitely has inherited all of the other traits – incredibly fluffy and beautiful, as well as soft and affectionate. She is a bit shy with strangers, but is devoted to me and especially my wife Julia.
Julia and I welcomed our first (human) child, little Madison, into the world at the end of July 2021. It has been really interesting to see how both cats reacted to this change in their lives:
EARLY DAYS
Mr Pickles in the early days – a slightly jealous Family Man
Mr Pickles was curious and interested right from the start. His mixture of traits is similar to a Siamese cat, and I believe they often become quite protective of babies? Pickle seems to love the baby, and like to be in the same room and it almost feels like he’s supervising us! We now refer to him as the “Family Man”! With that said, it also felt like he was a little jealous at times. In the photo you can see him leaning on me to make sure he still got a little bit of love and attention in those early days!
Bunny’s Original Opinion!
I’ve included this picture because I think it’s hilarious! Bunny looks like she is staring daggers at poor little Madison who is still only a couple of months old in the picture. In the early days, it felt like Bunny thought we had ruined her life by bringing home a noisy, stinking creature that absorbed a lot of our attention!
Truth is, if the baby was upstairs, Bunny was often downstairs and vice versa, so the pictures of them together in the early days are a bit rare! But it got better I promise!
MORE RECENTLY
Madison has just turned about 10 months old the other day. She is making great progress and can crawl properly and is holding onto objects to stand and reach things. It feels like free-standing and walking is not far away! She has become very interested in the cats, and is excited to see them and try and get a hold of them! She seems to think that they are hilarious. We are also suspecting that she may think that she is actually our third cat, as she seems to want to climb up onto the windowsill and copy them in other ways!
This means that Mr Pickles has had to learn to seek higher ground if he doesn’t want his tail and fur pulled while he continues to supervise our parenting!
After the first couple of months, Bunny has calmed down and forgiven us! Nowadays, she can often actually be found in the same room, but has to be on her toes to get away from grabby little hands!
Recently, in order to keep Madison safe and occupied instead of constantly crawling away from us, we have put up a playpen full of toys, and Bunny feels safe to be nearby and interact just out of reach…
Or nearly just out of reach!
Bunny also seems to have become more friendly to strangers that visit our house, probably for two reasons:
• She has realised that they actually are not SOOO scary compared to a crazy, grabby, crawly little baby girl!
• It’s an opportunity to catch up on affection. Bunny is really affectionate, and was used to being a real Mommy’s girl, but Mommy is still quite busy with a bit more of a helpless baby!
We do make sure to give Bunny some extra love, cuddles and a brush (she’s really fluffy) after Madison has gone down to sleep for the evening.
The playpen was a breakthrough. Now Bunny can actually play and interact with Madison while still feeling safe. In a lovely moment from a video we took about a month ago, Madison was just old and coordinated enough to control a cat toy on a string to be able to play with Bunny in return! She loved it!
I think the growing pains are over and everybody is loving each other in their own way, and we are all part of a happy family now!
THE END