The Truth About Baby Bunnies and Toddlers (A Survival Story)

I was knee-deep in packing tape, desperately trying to get three Etsy orders boxed up before the mail carrier arrived, while balancing my sweaty four-month-old on my hip. That's exactly when my oldest, Jackson, came sprinting through the back screen door like he was being chased by a ghost. He was screaming at the top of his lungs about finding "naked fuzzy jellybeans" in the lawnmower path by the fence. I'm just gonna be real with you, when you live in rural Texas, a kid screaming about wildlife usually means a snake, so I dropped the tape, yelled at my middle child to stop eating the dog's kibble, and ran outside barefoot.

Sure enough, right in the middle of our overgrown Bermuda grass that my husband swore he was going to mow this weekend, there was a shallow little hole. And inside it were four squirming, completely helpless baby bunnies.

My grandmother always swore that if you even breathed near a wild animal's nest, the mother would smell your human stink and instantly abandon her young just to spite you. I'm pretty sure that's mostly an old wives' tale designed to keep farm kids from bringing vermin into the house, but standing there staring at these tiny things, I totally panicked. I had no idea if the mom was dead, getting groceries, or watching me from the bushes judging my unwashed messy bun.

The Pinterest Pet Illusion

The irony of this whole situation is that just two weeks earlier, I was literally on my phone searching for baby bunnies for sale near me because I got completely brainwashed by the internet. You know exactly what I'm talking about. The aesthetic Instagram moms who dress their toddlers in beige linen and film them gently stroking a lop-eared rabbit in a perfectly lit wicker basket. I bought right into that fantasy. I figured I'd find a local farm, buy a fluffy little guy for Easter, stick a bow on him, and be Mother of the Year.

I even saw a cardboard sign at the feed store advertising domestic baby bunnies for sale and almost pulled my minivan over right then and there. But thank the Lord I called my cousin who works as a vet tech first, because she completely burst my bubble. She aggressively reminded me that rabbits are literally prey animals whose main survival tactic in the wild is having a heart attack and dying when they get too scared. Putting a loud, unpredictable, screaming toddler next to a fragile prey animal is basically just asking for a massive vet bill and a lot of childhood trauma.

She also told me that they're terribly expensive to keep alive. If you don't feed them the exact right ratio of fancy hay every few hours, their stomachs apparently just shut down entirely and they can die in like twelve hours from a tummy ache. I can barely remember to feed my sourdough starter, y'all. I don't have the mental bandwidth for an animal that requires more dietary micromanagement than my toddler. Plus, they chew baseboards. So, the pet dream died a swift death.

While I was falling down that internet rabbit hole, I also tried to look up what are baby bunnies called, and apparently, the official scientific term is "kittens," which is honestly the dumbest and most confusing thing I've ever heard so we're just going to completely pretend I didn't learn that fact.

Figuring Out The Food Situation

Back in the yard, Jackson was hovering over the nest, poking the dirt with a stick. He kept tugging my shirt asking me what do baby bunnies eat, totally convinced we needed to run to H-E-B for a bag of organic carrots like Bugs Bunny.

From what my vet cousin angrily texted me later, wild infant rabbits survive strictly on their mama's milk until their eyes open and they're big enough to forage, and trying to feed them cow's milk from your fridge is basically a death sentence because their tiny guts can't digest it. You basically just have to leave the nest exactly how you found it while dragging your screaming toddler inside and furiously googling local wildlife rehabbers all at the same time.

Our pediatrician, who has blessedly seen my kids through every weird rash imaginable, always reminds me that wild animals are basically walking petri dishes for things we don't want in our house. So you better believe I dragged Jackson to the kitchen sink and scrubbed his hands with heavy-duty dish soap just in case he had touched one of those little jellybeans when I wasn't looking.

While I was dealing with the hand-washing wrestling match, I needed to keep my middle daughter from melting down, so I shoved her Kianao Panda Teether into her hands. It's just okay, honestly. It's cute and it's dishwasher safe which is a necessity in my house, but if I'm being perfectly frank, she'd rather chew on my car keys or a dirty shoe. It does the job of distracting her for about five minutes when her gums are really bothering her, but it's not a miracle worker.

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The Twig Trick My Neighbor Taught Me

So I finally got a hold of a lady at a local wildlife rescue, and her advice sounded completely fake but she swore by it. She said that mama rabbits are essentially absent parents during the daylight hours. They intentionally stay far away from the nest when the sun is up so they don't lead coyotes or neighborhood cats right to the buffet line. They only sneak back for like five minutes at dawn and dusk to nurse.

She told me to go back out there and lay a few thin twigs over the grass on top of the nest in a tic-tac-toe pattern. If the twigs were pushed aside the next morning, it meant the mom came back under the cover of darkness to feed them.

That evening, the Texas heat finally broke, so I took the baby out to the back porch to keep watch. She was wearing her Kianao Organic Cotton Sleeveless Bodysuit, which is basically the only thing she wears from May to September. It's a solid, stretchy basic that doesn't get weirdly tight around her chunky thighs, and the fabric breathes enough that she doesn't get that awful heat rash on her chest.

Because the mosquitos were starting to come out, I swaddled her legs in our Kianao Organic Cotton Baby Blanket with Bunny Print. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is my absolute favorite thing we own. A lot of organic stuff is priced like it's woven from unicorn hair, but this one is actually budget-friendly, and it has this double-layered fabric that feels incredibly substantial without making the baby sweat. Plus, it has little white rabbits all over it, which felt very fitting for our porch vigil. We sat out there for an hour, me sipping lukewarm coffee and her gnawing on the blanket's hem, staring at the patch of grass. We never saw the mom.

Morning Confirmations

I barely slept that night, convinced I was going to have to drive a shoebox full of dying wildlife an hour away to the rehab center. But the next morning, before I even poured my coffee, I marched out to the yard.

The twigs were completely scattered.

The mom had come back. They were fine. I didn't have to be a wildlife hero, and I definitely didn't have to become a pet rabbit owner. We put a laundry basket over the nest during the day when the dogs were outside, and took it off at night. Within a couple of weeks, the babies just vanished into the brush, totally independent. Bless their hearts.

If your kids are begging for a bunny, save your sanity and your baseboards. Skip the pet store, leave the wild ones in the grass, and just buy them a plush toy. Your future self will thank you.

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My Messy FAQ About Kids and Rabbits

What do you do if your kid touches a wild baby bunny?
Don't panic and think the mom is going to reject it because of your kid's smell, because from what I've been told, their sense of smell isn't that dramatic. Just put the bunny right back where you found it, cover it with the dead grass it was hiding under, and march your kid to the sink to aggressively scrub their hands with soap. Wild animals carry weird stuff.

Are rabbits seriously good pets for toddlers?
Absolutely not. I know the internet makes it look precious, but they're fragile prey animals that hate being picked up and will scratch the fire out of your kid if they get spooked. Plus, they poop constantly. Stick to a golden retriever or, honestly, a rock.

How do you know if a wild nest is abandoned?
You probably won't see the mom during the day, which is totally normal. Do the tic-tac-toe twig trick I mentioned earlier. Lay a few small sticks over the nest in a grid and check it the next morning. If the sticks are moved, mom came back overnight. If they aren't moved after 24 hours, then you might need to call a local wildlife rescue.

Can I give cow's milk to a wild bunny if it looks hungry?
No! My vet cousin practically yelled at me through the phone about this. Cow's milk will literally destroy their little digestive tracts. If you absolutely know for a fact the mom is dead, put them in a dark, quiet box on a heating pad set to low, and call a professional rehabber. Don't try to play Dr. Dolittle with your fridge leftovers.