Baby Proofing the Litterbox

DH and I are trying to come up with a plan for after the baby is born and is mobile to keep the baby from the litter box. (I'm not sure this is the best spot for this thread; if a Mod feels it should be moved I won't mind! )

We have the Littermaid electronic box and love it. Currently in our new home it's in the laundry room/closet. It's basically a nice deep closet with louvered doors. We had thought putting a cat door on it would be good; but the guy at Lowes said the door wouldn't be good to cut into unless we change the doors.

We have been leaving one door open just enough for them to come in and out; but that won't work once the baby is mobile. The doors are pretty much the width of the whole room, so we could go through the wall, but it would either be into the kitchen or the living room. I'm not keen on that idea, or creating drywall work unnecessarily.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experience in this area? I don't want the girls going into the garage and there is no place to put a cat door into there either. I just don't know where else we could put the box that the baby couldn't get into it.

How many boxes?
Just a very quick idea that came to mind
put it behind the couch and push the couch at a slant against the wall if possible
or make something like this
http://www.petstorebyconny.com/site/...er-Box-CBM-003
Or put all boxes in one room and baby gate that whole room off

That litterbox cabinet looks like a good option! It's very similar to the cabinet I have under my fish tank. I think it's bigger. The floor plan of our house is pretty open so it feels limited where we can put the box. Plus the need of an outlet. I don't think we'd enjoy having the litterbox behind the couch without being covered. Since it's a littermaid box it's pretty sizable itself. We only have that one box out; and I'd hate to give it up.

Do you have a basement?

Do you have stairs in the house? If you do put it near the stairs that you will have to block off by the baby gate. We have two in the basement but we plan to put a baby gate just before the laundry door by the entrance to the family room.

Is elevating the litterbox an option? I'd considered doing this if I needed more than a 4th litterbox, basically stacking them. In your case, you need to just get it off of the ground, so the pedestal could be wrapped with sisal rope, dangly mice hanging from the top, and the whole thing doubling as a cat toy. Perhaps an intermediate perch on the wall for easier access.

Sorry for the crude drawing. But I got paid to do it, so that's cool.

My SIL had to take the cover of the litterbox because their cat was having issues with aim. But they have a siberian husky that loves to eat cat poop. So they placed a gate high enough that the husky can't access the box, but also so the cat can climb underneath it. Would taht be an option? I imagine your little one will become used to baby gates.

We use baby gates to limit access to our litter box room. Our Bassett hound will not stay out of the boxes. The cats just jump right over the top.

Our cat room is blocked off by a baby gate too. Its the one room the dog is not allowed in one because of cat poop and 2 because he has a family history of allergies towards cat food so we arent taking the risk of him getting into it. Id go with a the baby gate idea because eventually your going to end up baby gating off all the no no areas for the baby. Also with my girls they learned very quickly not to go into litter and Ive NEVER had a problem with it because I started teaching them no as soon as they could understand the word so they never messed with the litter.

For some reason cat litter really hasn't been an issue with us. Despite my son's repeated dog-food eating, water-bowl tipping, and general animals chasing (most of which he's finally grown out of, thankfully!). The only problem we've had is he's tried to clean it out with the scoop a few times & once with the TV remote (ewww, Lucas!!! ); and our litter was out in an area he had access to in passing (hallway). It's moved now.

The cabinet litter is a very good idea, but don't over-solve your problems before they occur

It was pretty much a non-issue for us as well, and my daughter was a lover of dirt, digging, getting messy. One sniff of the stuff IN the box was enough to convince her that it was best left alone.

I think you're probably worrying a lot about nothing.

Cally

Thanks for all the replies!!

There really isn't a way to gate off the box in this house. It's 3 bedrooms on one level and one bedroom is our office so we spend a lot of time in here. Everything else is pretty open to each other. I think for now I'm going to take your advice on not over-solving my problems just yet. But at least now I've got some good ideas to tuck in the back of my mind.

look at this DYI project with an IKEA cabinet:
http://www.moderncat.net/2009/07/22/...ter-box-hider/

BTW: this site show a whole bunch of options, if you look through it... it's pretty cool!