I love cats with babies. It is innocence with innocence. It is instinctive behavior with instinctive behavior. It is raw. It is not controlled, messed up adult human stuff. But there are pitfalls. It shows up the differences between the two species: felis silvestris catus and homo sapiens.

This is a page of selected cats and babies videos in a gallery. Although, there is one video with two kids.

You just have to click on the images below to go to a page to see the full sized screenshot, the video below it together with a comment on it. Of course you can add to the comment!

Babies like the feel of a cat. Of course, cats feel great. The cats and babies videos are interesting to me for several reasons. Firstly, as I said, I like to see babies and cats together. All being well, the baby will grow up to love cats. This means one more cat lover and less abused cats. Cats need good people!

It is also said that close contact with a cat at an early age helps build up a baby’s immune system….(continued below gallery)

….There is, though, quite a lot of negative comment on allowing cats to be in the same bed as babies. This might hark back to days gone by when superstitious people believed cats killed babies. We are at the time of witchcraft and people still believed in that until about 350 years ago. A lot of people still do.

Another important aspect of cats and babies together is how the baby interacts with the cat. In all the videos the parent is making the video so the situation is being monitored and supervised. Great, but if there is one certainty it is that a baby will mishandle the cat. The cats in the videos are very tolerant so nothing much happens. Are all cats tolerant with babies? Maybe. But something could happen that spoils what could and should be a nice relationship. Parents really have to make sure that their kids learn how to handle cats. That is for the sake of both the cat and child or baby.

Lastly, there is that knotty and difficult subject to bring up – declawing. I know most Americans will shrug their shoulders and say that I am just another pain in the butt Brit who has no right to get involved with American affairs and to butt-off.

I disagree because this is not just about American affairs it is about teaching kids to understand nature and what is good about nature. Above all it is about respecting cats and nature generally. That is good for the kid, the cat and the planet.

So, to my point…are some of these cats in the videos declawed? It would not surprise me if they were because I wouldn’t let a child of mine interact with a cat as some of these kids have for fear of the the cat inadvertently scratching my child. The dividing line between gentle play and getting scratched is fine. Play for a cat means hunting – grabbing, biting etc. It is great to see babies play with cats but it must be done with caution and supervision. That is common sense. Is one reason for declawing cats to avoid a cat scratching a child?

Associated page: Cat and Baby Precautions.