New baby and dog/co-sleeping

[Laurel]

We're (hopefully) adopting a newborn who will be arriving in about 4 weeks, give or take. It's been awhile since we had a baby, and in the meantime we've acquired a dog. Our dog sometimes jumps into bed with us. Generally she sleeps on a pillow on the floor in ds's room, but she is accustomed to being able to jump up on our bed and hang out with us in the evenings, and sometimes at night gets into our bed. I don't always know she's gotten into the bed until morning when I wake up.

Obviously I'm really concerned about the baby/dog combo. I know the dog CANNOT be in our bed, ever, when the baby is there. Right now I have an arms reach cosleeper and am planning that the baby will spend most of his time there, but I'm sure there will be plenty of times when he'll be right in bed with us too. And even with the cosleeper, the dog could still get in that too.

So what do we need to do to get our dog out of our bed? I'm just not sure that 4 weeks is enough time to re-train her that the bed is off-limits. (If it were up to me, she would have never been in our bed in the first place, but I lost out to dh on that one.) Should we buy a crate to put her in at night? That sounds like the safest option, but I'm pretty sure she'll bark all night long if she's locked in a cage.

[meemee]

aaaaaaaah i have a cat story. not dog.

our cat was like a second mom to dd. i will be forever grateful to her. she filled in for me when i wasnt there.

honestly in my gut it felt right to me to have both our cats in our bed right from day one. one of them slept right above dd's head so that the top of dd's head touched the cat. dd always slept better as a newborn if someone was touching the top of her head.

during naps as i got up cant went and slept right next to dd on the blanket with body touching her. kept dd sleeping.

i felt right about all this. i had read so much about animals should not be in bed with babies and even newborns. as a mom doing it on my own because my marriage was failing (i got NO help) with a high needs v. demanding and vociferous child i know the cat provided a huge deal with her touch.

i definitely noticed when our kitty was in bed (she always made a beeline for dd) her presence and constant purring definitely helped relax dd.

the idea that this was unsafe just did not feel right at all.

[Beltane]

I hear ya. We have 7 greyhounds and a 9 week old!

All of ours sleep on the floor except for one, and to accommodate him we actually put a twin bed perpendicular to the end of our queen bed. He's happy to sleep there and still feel 'included'. Perhaps something like that would work for you?

[Shanesmom]

Awwwww......that cat story was sooo sweet! Made me want to get a cat!!

As for the dog, can you just let the dog sleep in the living room? We shut our bedroom door sometimes and let our Rottie and Chesapeake Bay slept on the couch.

[marinak1977]

Honestly our dogs got (and still get to) share the bed with us as a family. They sleep at my feet and DS is near my chest when I'm asleep so they are never near each other, occasionally our youngest dog would jump on the bed near DS but I would always make sure he wasn't on top of him. That only happens when I am awake. DS is now 11 months and we never had any sketchy situations sharing the bed with the pups.

[sosurreal09]

i have to say our Boston Terrier always slept in our bed. no issues until one night there was a thunderstorm, well he got scared apparently. i woke to my baby's muffled cry and i couldnt figure out where she was or what was going on lo and behold the dog was on TOP of her smothering her really. not on purpose but still we kicked the dog out after that.