Okay, so I'm having cat vs. baby issues. Some background: my cat is 14 years old. For the past year or so he's had some issues with diarrhea (in fact, I posted about it here a few months ago). I've had him tested for everything under the sun, and he tests clear for everything (thyroid is normal, no parasites, etc.). The vet's latest diagnosis is IBS. I've tried raw food (worked like a miracle till he started throwing it up a month later). I've tried hypoallergenic food (no change). The only thing that improves his poop is to pair his food with a roughly equal amount of pumpkin. He'll still poop up to four times a day, but at least it's not liquid. He's now on special food for IBS. So, okay, I have this cat who has issues to begin with.
Enter the baby.
The house was set up for the baby well before its arrival, and the cat didn't seem to mind in the slightest. He happily checked out all the new stuff in the house. He tested the car seats personally. He seemed to appreciate the increased privacy that came with having a changing table overtop his litterbox. Life continued apace, despite the aforementioned issues with his intestinal tract. He sat with me periodically for 12 hours while I was in early labor -- actually, he was quite callous. As I held on to things in an endeavor to remain upright or gripped the rocking chair arms in pain, he blithely sat on me or demanded to be let in or out of the house. In short, he behaved normally. Returning with the baby was another story. He was on his way over to greet us as we came in the door when he caught sight of the sleeping infant in his car seat carrier. He stopped dead in his tracks, clearly decided we had brought a tiny monster into the house, and then ran into the front room and hid under the bed. He came back out later in the evening and sat on my lap as I nursed the baby, however. Things looked promising.
Except they weren't. I tore during delivery, so it was hard for me to get up and down from the couch for a week while the wound healed. I had to nurse constantly. It was hard to give the cat as much attention as he was used to (or even any undivided attention at all), and he would run from the room the minute the baby made a noise. In fact, he preferred to leave as soon as he saw him, though he did also occasionally come to sit with me and the baby and sniff the baby a little to figure him out. Still, he started spending more and more time outside, especially since nobody could hear him demanding to be let in (except me -- I spent a lot of time yelling, "Could someone let the cat in?" from my perch on the couch). After I healed, I was still often stuck to the couch because breastfeeding was going poorly, so I was hooked up to the pump up to ten times a day.
My mother arrived when the baby was ten days old, and that seems to have been the final straw (and frankly it was more stressful to me, despite the insistence of health care workers that my life would be less stressful with my mother's help, hah). The cat went on a hunger strike. I called the vet and he prescribed some Mirtazapine to stimulate his appetite and reduce anxiety. That worked like a charm -- if we could get him to actually take the pill, that is. And we only succeeded once. Even with my mother holding him down by all fours, we lost two pills to his incredible ability to avoid taking pills. I crushed up the pills into water and squirted them into his mouth, but that had limited effect. Anyway, the pill is only effective on the day it's taken, and he was supposed to take them every other day.
It's quite clear that his refusal to eat is psychological, though when I took him to the vet two weeks ago he had also developed a heart murmur (the vet wants to investigate said murmur further; I suspect it has to do with his hunger strike and the weight loss that accompanied it). My mother went home, and then we took the baby to visit my husband's family out of state for ten days, and during that time I had a friend stay with the cat. He managed to get the cat to eat by taking food to him in small quantities outside. Eventually he brought the food back indoors, and yesterday while he was gone and we were on the way home, the cat had the house to himself and appears to have eaten all of the food my friend left out for him. He looks like he put a little weight back on while we were gone. My friend managed to get him to eat without the use of the pills at all: there are three left in the container.
But of course as soon as we returned, he went back to his hunger strike. Last night I sat with him and patted him for an hour until he wandered off. He seems to have eaten two dry shrimp (his favorite treat) overnight. This morning he meowed at the door about half an hour after I let him out, but seemed to want me to go out rather than come back in himself. I brought food out to him, and he does appear to have eaten a little of it (I also learned that if one leaves dry food outside here the ants will come. The horror! Supervised outdoor eating only from hereon in). My friend suggests putting a smaller portion in the bowl with some treats.
The baby, meanwhile, has grown a lot. He's now 7 weeks old and must be over 11 lbs by now (he was 10 and 2 ounces at his last checkup; we don't have a scale). He is quieter and is able to sleep for longer (which is what allowed me to spend a good hour alone with the cat last night). The cat sniffed at him a bit while I fed him this morning, while purring, and I patted him throughout, but he still shows no interest in eating. So clearly he's quite upset that we brought the now-slightly-larger monster back with us.
So, my question is, how do I get the cat to eat? I think I have things under control with the baby now and can devote some more time to the cat, but his not eating is dangerous and troubling. Please help me assure my cat that he is still loved and help him to eat again!
Enter the baby.
The house was set up for the baby well before its arrival, and the cat didn't seem to mind in the slightest. He happily checked out all the new stuff in the house. He tested the car seats personally. He seemed to appreciate the increased privacy that came with having a changing table overtop his litterbox. Life continued apace, despite the aforementioned issues with his intestinal tract. He sat with me periodically for 12 hours while I was in early labor -- actually, he was quite callous. As I held on to things in an endeavor to remain upright or gripped the rocking chair arms in pain, he blithely sat on me or demanded to be let in or out of the house. In short, he behaved normally. Returning with the baby was another story. He was on his way over to greet us as we came in the door when he caught sight of the sleeping infant in his car seat carrier. He stopped dead in his tracks, clearly decided we had brought a tiny monster into the house, and then ran into the front room and hid under the bed. He came back out later in the evening and sat on my lap as I nursed the baby, however. Things looked promising.
Except they weren't. I tore during delivery, so it was hard for me to get up and down from the couch for a week while the wound healed. I had to nurse constantly. It was hard to give the cat as much attention as he was used to (or even any undivided attention at all), and he would run from the room the minute the baby made a noise. In fact, he preferred to leave as soon as he saw him, though he did also occasionally come to sit with me and the baby and sniff the baby a little to figure him out. Still, he started spending more and more time outside, especially since nobody could hear him demanding to be let in (except me -- I spent a lot of time yelling, "Could someone let the cat in?" from my perch on the couch). After I healed, I was still often stuck to the couch because breastfeeding was going poorly, so I was hooked up to the pump up to ten times a day.
My mother arrived when the baby was ten days old, and that seems to have been the final straw (and frankly it was more stressful to me, despite the insistence of health care workers that my life would be less stressful with my mother's help, hah). The cat went on a hunger strike. I called the vet and he prescribed some Mirtazapine to stimulate his appetite and reduce anxiety. That worked like a charm -- if we could get him to actually take the pill, that is. And we only succeeded once. Even with my mother holding him down by all fours, we lost two pills to his incredible ability to avoid taking pills. I crushed up the pills into water and squirted them into his mouth, but that had limited effect. Anyway, the pill is only effective on the day it's taken, and he was supposed to take them every other day.
It's quite clear that his refusal to eat is psychological, though when I took him to the vet two weeks ago he had also developed a heart murmur (the vet wants to investigate said murmur further; I suspect it has to do with his hunger strike and the weight loss that accompanied it). My mother went home, and then we took the baby to visit my husband's family out of state for ten days, and during that time I had a friend stay with the cat. He managed to get the cat to eat by taking food to him in small quantities outside. Eventually he brought the food back indoors, and yesterday while he was gone and we were on the way home, the cat had the house to himself and appears to have eaten all of the food my friend left out for him. He looks like he put a little weight back on while we were gone. My friend managed to get him to eat without the use of the pills at all: there are three left in the container.
But of course as soon as we returned, he went back to his hunger strike. Last night I sat with him and patted him for an hour until he wandered off. He seems to have eaten two dry shrimp (his favorite treat) overnight. This morning he meowed at the door about half an hour after I let him out, but seemed to want me to go out rather than come back in himself. I brought food out to him, and he does appear to have eaten a little of it (I also learned that if one leaves dry food outside here the ants will come. The horror! Supervised outdoor eating only from hereon in). My friend suggests putting a smaller portion in the bowl with some treats.
The baby, meanwhile, has grown a lot. He's now 7 weeks old and must be over 11 lbs by now (he was 10 and 2 ounces at his last checkup; we don't have a scale). He is quieter and is able to sleep for longer (which is what allowed me to spend a good hour alone with the cat last night). The cat sniffed at him a bit while I fed him this morning, while purring, and I patted him throughout, but he still shows no interest in eating. So clearly he's quite upset that we brought the now-slightly-larger monster back with us.
So, my question is, how do I get the cat to eat? I think I have things under control with the baby now and can devote some more time to the cat, but his not eating is dangerous and troubling. Please help me assure my cat that he is still loved and help him to eat again!
