3 cats & a baby

[boom_shanka]

Hi!

We have three cats (all between 1 and 2 years old) and a three month old baby. We have a few concerns and would appreciate your feedback on these topics.

1. We use Arm & Hammer litter. It seems to track quite a bit. With our baby rapidly approaching time spent on the floor crawling, we would like to find a way to minimize the tracking and keep the cats' paws as clean as possible. Could anyone recommend a good non-tracking litter or other solutions?

2. Currently we keep the nursery closed while the baby stays in our bedroom. The cats jump at the nursery door and rush in whenever they can. They sometimes jump into the crib. What can we do to discourage them from jumping at the door (they can even turn the door handle and open it) and jumping into the crib?

Thanks!

[Wanda]

I always wanted my Dolly to have the best so I started out buying the more expensive litter, well Dolly didn't like it and the dust and tracking was bad so I kept changing til I found one "Special Kitty Litter" next to the cheapest wal-mart has. Dolly really likes it and almost no dust and little tracking. But I must give a warning here, cats do not take good to change so go about this very carefully and gradually or you could create a huge problem, I got one kind and Dolly would go in and scratch as much out as she could sending it flying everywhere needless to say I got the message! Also another precaution I would take would be to vaccuum before putting baby down, lay a quilt on the floor or use a large playpen, because I don't think you could be 100% sure floor was clean enough for baby no matter what brand you use or how clean you try to keep the floors. Hope this helps. Wanda

[jason]

1. We use Arm & Hammer litter. It seems to track quite a bit. With our baby rapidly approaching time spent on the floor crawling, we would like to find a way to minimize the tracking and keep the cats' paws as clean as possible.

fresh step seems to work well for me as far as tracking (i have wood floors). you may also want to place a towel underneath the litter box that extends out in all possible exit directions as to to pick up some of the litter as they leave the box.

2. Currently we keep the nursery closed while the baby stays in our bedroom. The cats jump at the nursery door and rush in whenever they can. They sometimes jump into the crib.

i have heard from someone who dealt with this by buying a screen door (with mounting hardware) and installing it on the outside of the bedroom door opening. it would allow you to close off the room while still keeping circulation, sight and sound open to you from outside the room. this might seem like a pricy/over the board solution but i can imagine it would be worth its weight in gold.

[Yzma]

When we were using the ball silica bits, we used to use a piece of matt that looked like astro turf. It's supposed to clean out the paws of litter that gets stuck... The only trouble is that you have to place it in such a fashion that your cats can't walk around it to get past it.