Thanks for checking out my Monday’s Mommas feature. This week I’m pleased to introduce you to Suzanna.

Suzanna is a mom to a multitude of hooligans. You can find her over at www.onehooliemama.blogspot.com.  She’s a wife, boy mom, fur mom, runner and fitness enthusiast, blogger, volunteer, who also happens to work full time.  She blogs about their lives and the lessons she’s learning along the way. Read her post about introducing animals to your little ones.

I’ve been a mom to our fur children for many years now, so when we learned that we would be having our first non-fur child, I spent quite a bit of time researching how to introduce the new baby into the pack.   There are many different resources that give tips about introducing a little one, but I wanted to share how we chose to (both successfully and relatively easily) bring #BabyD into the pack.

We didn’t spend any longer at the hospital than we were required to by the doctors, so we weren’t away from the dogs too long (I am very thankful to have family close by and a brother who is willing to house & dog-sit when needed).  The only dog we had any hesitation about with the baby was Bella – she’s our youngest, a total daddy’s girl, and pretty much a diva hooligan.  Rather than bringing home baby clothes or blankets for the dogs to sniff out (like I said, we didn’t want to spend any extra time at the hospital, so why take the time to make an extra trip home?), we decided that our plan of attack was for me to come in first, say hello to the dogs, and let them out into the backyard.  Then Hubby would bring #BabyD in, and we’d let the dogs in one at a time to meet their new brother.

 

 

 

Bella was let in first and, while she was very curious about the new creature, she immediately caught on that this little thing was important to her daddy, so she decided he was going to be important to her as well.  Bella decided that this was going to be “her” baby and was attentive to his every fussiness.

 

 

The rest of the dogs have adjusted also very well to their new brother – sniffing him and giving him kisses whenever they get the opportunity, and letting him pet them almost whenever he wants.  Now that #BabyD is getting more mobile, sometimes he bothers the dogs enough for them to leave the room, but they are good sports.

 

 

All in all, we had an easy transition for the dogs, though they did need some extra attention from us in the beginning.  I think that most dogs will accept a new member to the pack as long as they still get love and attention too.