Since becoming a human parent, I discovered not only baby and cat can cohabit very happily, but a lot of baby items are actually super handy for cat use too!
Over the years, I have been sharing these tips with my customers. As a result, you will find a lot of these baby items at the home of a lot of my customers who don’t even have children!
1. Baby wipes
Baby wipes are great to clean up mess. E.g. dry up vomit, debris from the litter trays, or even some dry up bits on the cat’s eyes and nose. It’s preferably to pick something that are fragrance-free. We enjoy the Water Wipes at Maow Care. Not only these made with 99.9% water, there is just something about the texture of the wipe itself that make it so much easier to pick up bits. Trust me, I have tried a wide range of different brands at different customer’s home. I still think Water Wipes is the best hands down.

The link will bring you to EarthMother.ie, which is our favourite shop to buy wipes.
2. Nappy bag
We pet sitters LOVE nappy bags. They are great to use when we are scooping poop. Also, the thing is when we are doing a cat sitting job, the chance is the human will be away for a while. We are usually very reluctant to leave the rubbish in the house’s main bin for such a long duration. It starts to smell. But at the same time, we feel it’s so wasteful to take out a full size black bin bag with only 3 packaging from wet food pouches in there! So nappy bags come in handle to depose just small amount of rubbish. And in a pinch, when we need a pair of gloves for some reasons – checking a wound, picking up poop outside the box, etc, these baggies are super handy for that. We recommend Beaming Baby Biodegradable Nappy Bags. There is just something about the packaging that is so handy. A lot of my customers have nappy bags at home for cats, but many of them are very difficult to pull out. I always end up having to lick my finger, which is not my favourite thing to do. I have experienced with Tesco ones, Aldi ones and Lidi ones at cat jobs, they are all very difficult to pull out. These Beaming Baby ones take absolutely no effort to pull out, I never have to lick my finger. They are also more compacted, it’s thinner than a book! I tend to put it in my bag when I am out for jobs. I prefer the fragrance free ones.

This link will bring you to EarthMother.ie, which is our favourite shop to buy these baggies.
3. Childproof device
On my other post, I spoke about a few Ikea items that are great for cats. Childproof safety devices are not only for children, my friends! They are also great for cats!
Window catch will be particularly handy for people who live in apartment and worried about their cat jumping over the window.
I use this for the fridge because my cat Fafa can open the fridge and steal everything in a few seconds. It can also be useful for other cabinets.
Same as above, you might want to put this on food cabinet if you have a thief cat like I do.
These are super useful in making sure to leave a gap for doors that you want your cat to have access to. e.g.. the room where they have their litter trays or their favourite room where their cat beds are, etc. These fingerboard will leave a big enough gap for your cat to push the door open and go through.
These could serve the same purpose as the fingerguard too, but I prefer the fingerguard because you don’t need to leave the door open forever with the fingerguard. With these, it takes more effort to remove them so to close the door. Not handy for places like bathrooms where you need to close a couple of times a day.
4. Doll bed
On the same post about Ikea items, I have also mentioned these DUKTIG Doll’s bed. These make really cute cat beds!
Here are some examples of happy cats using these beds…

Photo credit: Instagram

Photo credit: Instagram
5. Children’s books (and their audio version)
Now this one might be a bit strange to you. As a cat behaviourist and sitter, we do use children’s books sometimes to deal with cats with high anxiety level. With anxious cats, it’s very important to keep a smooth gentle voice when dealing with them. Sometimes, my customers find it difficult to know how ‘gentle’ they are supposed to go! One thing I find very useful and can guarantee an instant gentle voice is children’s books (I do that myself sometimes when I am cat sitting nervous cats).
Do this experiment, try to read a children’s book right now! “Once upon a time…” See? Your voice immediately resume certain quality. That gentleness and softness in your voice is what we are looking for when dealing with anxious cats.
Tapes can be handy too when you are away for long stretch of time during the day and you just got a new cat who is very anxious. Play the children’s stories during the day at low volume can help with their anxiety.
Do you use any baby item for your cat? Comment below! I would love to see your idea and I will add to this list!
The mom has used the cabinet catch thing much to our dismay.
Hahaha! Poor kitties 🙂
Those doll beds are so cute!
Clever and fabulous suggestions! I knew that wipes are good, and the cupboard thingies, but never thought of the doll bed, so cute!! catchatwithcarenandcody
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Excellent post. I did a post last year with a contest to see if people could tell the difference between cat toys and baby toys- not many could 🙂
Really! Can I see the contest? It will be fun for my customers to have a go at the game!
Awesome info here! Also now I really need to get those doll beds! They’re adorable and there is even a tortie on one of them that reminds me of one if my cats lol 🙂
Glad that you find the post useful! Yes those beds are so cute! 😍
Some cats with “issues” even use diapers! We use those long bags newspapers come in to throw the cat waste in. Nappy sacks are a good idea too.
Oh thanks for the idea of newspaper bags!
Kitty proofing your home is a lot like Kiddie proofing your home! Except in our case, we have to put a bungee cord on the freezer door. – Keeps getting left open when the kitty jumps down from the top of the fridge. Another good thing to do is take all the knobs off the stove – can prevent an accidental fire. Here in my town, a rescuer’s house was caught on fire when a pet accidentally turned on the stove.
Oh wow! Very good advice! I did one job when the cat turned on the hot plate! Thankfully I was standing next to it when I arrived to wash their bowls. I felt the heat and turned it off. Otherwise, who knows how long will the thing be left turned on!
Now the customer unplug everything when she goes away. But good advice to take off the knobs!
That’s really sweet you read children’s books to your cats. I have an amazing cat sitter as well. It gives me such peace of mind when I’m away.
Not all of them, but some cats especially those with feral history seems to need that.