Just need some reassurance please.

Doing a new cat intro for the first time. Resident cat is a 2 year old spayed female and new cat is an 8 week old female kitten.

We're following all the wonderful advice on TCS, keeping them separated, making resident cat our priority, etc. I know it will take a long time, but it is hard to watch my darling resident kitty hiss, growl, and swat at the door whenever she walks by.

It's only been a couple days, but I am curious, how long is 'normal' for intense/constant hissing and growling before we want to try brief face-to-face intros? Somebody please just tell me that eventually the hissing will lessen a bit.

I hope everything works out with your new baby.

As far as how the long the hissing last, it varies GREATLY. For example, I got Danny about a month ago and it took him and Harvey about a week before they started to get along. Now they're best buds. However, Luke and Danny are still kind of touch and go. Sometimes their fine being right by each other and other times one of the two will start having a hissy fit.

I introduced a resident cat and a kitten many years ago (but that was before I knew to separate them) and the older cat was pretty mad at us for a while, but within a month they were sleeping with their paws about each other.

about the size difference. 2 years vs 8 weeks. I sure would hate to see the older cat attack the little one. I put up a temporary screen door on an extra bedroom. Fed them together, one on each side. Put a string under the door for them to play together, but seperate. Watch the body language on the older one. You can tell a lot there. I had a ferral cat that would fall down and roll when my regular cat walked by the door. I knew there would be no trouble and he has been a sweetheart ever since. Good luck to you!

Thanks for the advice. The size difference is definitely a concern, and I imagine no matter how soon the older one feels more comfortable, we won't keep them together much until the little one grows a bit. Our resident is small for an adult and feels intimidated by other cats her size or bigger, so we were hoping a kitten with a very slow intro would be best.

We're in no huge hurry to get them together (other than purely selfishly wanting us to be one happy family if possible), so we'll wait it out for the little one's safety. I just wish my sweet resident kitty would stop hissing and have her maternal instincts kick in or something. She's seen the kitten in her carrier a couple times, and we were hoping she'd realize it was only a baby and was no threat to her... but no such luck. Yet.