Hi Stevie-anne,

DH and I have two nutty, licky jack russells. We've always discouraged or stopped any sort of a lick-fest (or face licks ) but I think the dog needs to have some supervised access to the child because both are part of the family and the dog needs to understand that the child isn't competition - or a toy - for the dog iykwim.

To this end, we let the dogs give our bubs the odd a lick on the arm, leg etc - washed off afterwards. Our DS1 never suffered for it - he didn't get sick till he started daycare at 13 months . Snotty, sneezy kids seem to be worse for my DS1's health than the dogs.

So far the dogs aren't too fussed with DS2 ... maybe the novelty wore off after DS1 "grew up" .