*******Wanted - The sound of babies crying!**********

As you may know, I am pregnant. The baby is due 3rd June and i have begun some preparation to prepare Tonks for it's arrival.

As soon as i knew i was pregnant i stopped Tonks jumping on my lap and playing tug with me. She has to ask to come up onto the sofa, and is used to being asked to wait in a sit or down while i do things.

At the moment we have the pram and a bouncy chair in the lounge which she has had a good lick and sniff of and is used to seeing them being bounced and pushed around.

She is also walking on a head collar now....so it will be easier to walk her and push the pram.

She goes to dog training regularly so is well trained, although she is still young so can get excited still. Paul has three boys already (4, 10 and 13), and she has met lots of children and toddlers which she adores. She has also met a couple of babies when he was a small puppy.

I have played some clips of babies crying on the internet but they are very short.

I was wondering if anyone with a baby would be prepared to tape record their baby crying so i could play in to Tonks in preparation.

I would also like to hear of other people's experiences and any ideas for what else i can do to prepare her.

Thank you

There must be some on the net somewhere as otherwise someone would have to listen to their baby crying for a longer one.
Brill that you're preparing her though.
I thought you were talking about preparing the baby. I used to sit with headphones blasting U2 into my tummy when pregnant just to prepare him for what he was bring born into, and it worked a treat, slept through from day 1!
Plus no caffeine at all during the whole prgenancy, so he was a chilled baby.

Don't have a baby but maybe something like this?
http://www.soundtherapy4pets.com/product.php?pid=8

Thanks for the link, that looks good.

Ooo your are better than me. I cut out caffine for the first few months but now have two or three cups of tea a day. I did try the decaff ones, but they just don't taste the same. Maybe i should have one caffine and the rest decaff a day.

Give Phil a pm. Fiona is about three months old now. As well as crying she makes all sorts of cool noises and little "speaking" sounds. It would all be good for Tonks.

my son is at the 'terrible twos' stage so he cries alot and ...alot more lol!
My sadie was 6 months old when noah was born she has been great from day one but what i will say, as hard as it will be at the start- make sure she is involved with as much as you can (if she wants to be) when you want to sleep or have time out- give her a nice bone or kong or whatever you want that she will like, make her associate the baby with good positive and nice things and make sure she still get her cuddles when you get a minute! im sure you know all of this but believe me its easy to forget about the dog when youve a newborn. now my sadie loves noah probably more than she loves me!!

Happy to oblige if you still need it.

How old is Tonks ?

Dogs are very good at adjusting to change. A new baby will no doubt make all sorts of sounds but Tonks will get used to things pretty quickly.

Having had 2 babies 'after' three dogs - I'd say sound is not that much of an issue.

The biggest impact on the dogs is the way they react to another 'thing' getting all your attention.

My advice would be to give Tonks plenty of attention whilst the baby is in the same room.

hello catrin,

I am inclined to agree with Phil, I didnt do anything in particular with Bruno, in fact he used to sit on my lap and be kicked by Luca in my tummy !!! LOL

I think if you have a calm attitude to it then your dog will pick up on that.

I wouldnt worry about the sound thing too much, the best advice i can give is to relax, on coming home from the hospital, you greet Tonks first without the baby, and then let her give baby a good sniff... staffies are absolutely fantastic with kids, even marauding toddlers, and I think they just get that they have to be more gentle etc around them.

But the key is definetly relaxing about it and not stopping her from giving baby a lick etc in the first few days so that she accepts it.

Hope this helps, I wasnt worried with Bruno, I did wonder how he would be but I was never concerned that he wouldnt accept him, i suppose because I had seen him with my friends kids...

Infact a few months before, my friend had come to visit with her son who was about 4 months old. I went through to make a cuppa for us, she came through a few minutes later, without her wee boy, and I said - dont leave him with the dog by himself- went through to living room and bruno was cuddled up beside him on the couch !! not touching him just right beside him almost like he was taking care of him.

I also invested in a playpen for Luca cos I thought that it would allow me to leave him whilst i answered the door etc and Bruno wouldnt be able to get into him..... Luca started crawling at 5 months old, and I came back from the toilet one day to find Bruno inside the playpen and Luca crawling about the floor !!! i obviously hadnt shut the door properly and bruno decided that he was safer away from little hands !!! LOL

Really dont stress its the best thing you can do and just trust that all the super training that you have done up to this point to make her a lovely well rounded dog will pay off when she accepts her new little bruv or sister !!!

hth
dani

Thank you for the replies, for some reason my computer didn't tell me there were answers!

Thank you for that suggestion, I'd forgetting Phil had a newish addition.

Good advice, i intend to make sure i am giving tonks lots of individual attention - but, like you say, when you are sleep deprived good intentions can go out the window. We decided yesterday that we need to stuff and freeze some bones etc so that i can have them to hand to keep Tonks feeling occupied and special.

The thing i am not looking forward to is all the visitors oddly enough. Tonks is ok after a few minutes, if we give her something lovley, but she does still get excited intially and i feel putting her in the kitchen for the duration of visitors stay won't be the right thing to do as we might get loads of visitors. It is the visitors reactions that worry me too.....especially with the latest sad news of the attack on a baby.........i hve already had to reassure both granies to be!

Thank you. I have ordered the soundscary cd from the internet so we might be ok for baby crying sounds. We are going to try as hard as possible to keep her included.

I teach childcare (after years of doing it myself) and am also thinking about borrowing one of ours dolls from college to practice with Tonks sitting calmly near me while i talk to the "baby" and her. We have clicker trained with her from day one so the message of what we want her to do gets accross very quickly with her.

Thank you for that Dani, i think a play pen is a good idea too.........just wish we had more room, ou one bedroomed flat is busting at the seems it seems! Fingers crossed for some nice warm weather in June so that Tonks, baby and us can have nice long ambles outdoors. Luckily we have a garden too.

Even when hurt Tonks has never reacted to bite or snap so that is a really god sign i think.Yesterday, while Paul's boys were playing on the wii she accidentally got smacked on the side of the head with the hand held bit while she was asleep. Her reaction was to apologise by licking Paul's youngest all over

She is clumsy though and i can invisage her jumping on the sofa and landing on part of the baby by accident though.

I would have liked her to meet more babies, but it is difficult finding a willing mother unfortunately. So many people are wary of dogs and children and especially so because of the staff label.........as you know!

Sorry Phil, i forgot to say that Tonks is a year and one month old.

She has been brough up seeing Pauls three children every weekend, and has also met toddlers, teenagers and some babies.