babies and cats - need advice

Artemis has started getting aggressive with Amelia. She is getting really good at touching him gently (she doesn't pull his hair or hit him), but he still swats at her and ends up scratching her. Artemis hates being pet on anyone's terms but his own, yet he insists on lying right within reach of Amelia and not in his usual high up places. I'm quite sure he's doing it on purpose. He's very territorial. Amelia's only 8 months old so she doesn't understand "no" yet. Aside from keeping her completely away from him, does anyone have any advice on how I can keep him from scratching her? She's extremely mobile (walking already!) so it's hard to keep her still. I try to keep his claws pretty short, but they can still do damage. How do you handle it wiht your kids and pets?

 

I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. I've had babies and kitties together at the same time and generally had no problem. Many years ago we took in a kitty and the kitty did scratch my one daughter right above the eye. She was a toddler at the time. We had to take the kitty back to the shelter. We hadn't had her for very long.

I don't really have any suggestions other than keep telling Artemis NO anytime it looks like he is going to swat or scratch the baby.

 

I'm sorry Halaroo. I have no good advice. My first born went through this stage and Pumpkin and Milo scratched him a couple of times in the face. Luckily, he lost interest in them after awhile. Rene was so jealous of him that she scratched me one day out of the blue and left me 3 permanent scars. Better me than the baby. The funny part is that all the kitties are accustomed to having kids and babies in the house now that they actually let my 14 month old pet or smack them. I still supervise and distract her with something else. I try not to leave her with them for more than a few seconds.

 

would Artemis let you put soft claws caps on him? I put them on Vianne before and they lasted over 2 months. You just have to make sure that you dont over trim the nails before you glue them on or else they won't stick as well.

Also after a month or so, make sure that the nails aren't growing too long with the caps still on. Vianne still had 2 caps on after 2 months and one day i looked at them to check if they were ready to fall off YET, and i noticed that her nail had started to curve around. It wasn't quite touching her pad yet, but i had to get large human toenail clippers to slide over the cap to snap them off becuz i could get her regular claw clippers underneath the nail to trim them off. I felt really bad, but at least i caught it before it became a big problem. So that's something to look out for if his claws grow quickly.

The claw caps won't do anything for the behavior, but at least they may help protect Amelia. I hate to think that Artemis might scratch her with dirty kitty box claws and have her scratch get infected.

 

Hi. We are having the same trouble. LOL. My wife's cat Ink is such the grumpy old man and Kira just insists on pestering him. After five billion times of trying to keep her away from him, we finally just let her learn that he will scratch her and she needs to leave him alone. Well, it took two small scratched arms and a scratched hand to finally get it that she should not go near him.

The soft-paws/claws idea that was posted is not a bad idea.

 

I always had cats and kids too and learned the best way for the kid to learn that cat claws hurt is to get scratched. Hard lesson and one we all prefer to avoid but hey shat happens.
I quickly grew tired of the constant "no no no no" and finally told both my sons (11 years difference between the 2) that if kitty scratches it's gonna hurt. Yeah there were tears but the didn't get scratched badly just enough to make them realize they don't to mess w/those claws.
I tend to take the tough love approach anyway...I say no 3 times and then I'm done.

 

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm going to look into soft paws again. I can't believe I hadn't thought of it! Amelia has been scratched many times by Artemis already, and I'm afraid she hasn't learned her lesson yet. She rarely even cries when he gets her. Artemis even scratched the bottom of her foot when she was nursing the other day! Also she tends to laugh when I say "no" so that hasn't been working too well. I know that it's just going to take time. She is still very young. I much prefer Moe's attitude of just leaving the room when Amelia gets too close!