It’s great having a baby and a cat at the same time. They both provide us with a fun and unique experience, especially for first-timers. It’s also fascinating to watch them interact and grow together, but there are some drawbacks to keeping a baby and a cat together.
One of the possibilities is that the baby may try to eat your cat’s food. Most babies and toddlers enjoy exploring, and they satisfy their curiosity by putting whatever they find in their mouths. This can certainly become an issue if you have cat food sitting around your house.
How to keep cat food away from baby?
You can keep cat food away from a baby by using a door trap, choosing good location for the food, changing the bowl, and using proper storage.
1. Use a door trap
A door trap is an entrance that is large enough for most cats to wiggle through to reach their food, water, and a litter box, but small enough to keep a crawling baby out. It also serves as a sanctuary for stressed-out pets.
This is a great solution if you keep you cat food in a small room or closet.
You can buy one for under $15 here on amazon.
2. Be aware of your tray’s location
Keep the cat food tray out of the way of common areas. Instead of putting the tray in the kitchen or living room, try putting it in the laundry room or bathroom. By putting this in a separate room, you can help prevent your baby from finding the food. You can also put the food bowl up on a shelf that your cat can climb up to.
Regardless of where you put the food tray, make sure that it is still easily accessible for your cat.
3. Change your cat’s bowl
If your baby is drawn to the cat bowl, you can try using a more generic bowl that isn’t as colorful. They may be drawn to the bowl because it has bright colors and fun designs.
You could also try getting a deeper bowl that would make it harder for your baby to reach into.
4. Use a proper storage
It would be best to store unopened cat food out of reach of children. For example, putting it in the upper cabinets or a difficult storage box to open. I store my cat food in my coat closet.
5. Guide them
Children should be taught what to eat and not to eat as early as possible. If they do get into your cat food, you should discipline so they know not to repeat the behavior.
Baby ate cat food: What to do now?
Although cat food does not contain inedible or harmful substances for humans, infections such as Salmonella can contaminate cat food and make your baby sick. It can also cause choking in children, and in the worst cases your baby might have an allergic reaction. If your child becomes ill due to eating cat food, contact Poison Control or your doctor immediately.
If your baby ate wet cat food, they will likely have digestions issues such as diarrhea.
If your dog ate cat food, you should check out my article on my dog ate cat food and is now sick.
Conclusion
Babies will get into anything and everything in your house if you leave them unattended for even a second. They appear to be drawn to the things you want them to avoid because they are fascinated by their surroundings.
However, we do not need to choose between the two; we can keep our cat, even if we have a baby. In fact, children can learn a lot from pets. So embrace both, and as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. In this article, we have listed some steps that you must consider to keep cat food away from your baby.
