Cats Waking Us Up Too Damned Much!

Back in December we adopted a brother and sister set of long-haired tuxedos from the Mt Pleasant shelter. They were about 18 months old, and are really great little beings. Wonderful personalities, not mean in the least, loving and gentle, playful but not nutso, always use their litter boxes, eat anything we put in front of them. They are even pretty trainable, mostly keeping off kitchen counters and when they forget a quick hand clap or even a word gets them to jump down quickly. We absolutely adore them.

EXCEPT that they are waking us up all night. At first it was just a gentle probing paw to the face at 5 AM, or a rub against a hand dangling off the bed at 5:30 AM. But most of the time they slept nicely at the foot of our bed or in a nearby chair. Every so often they would get a bit pushy at 4 AM, but could be easily dissuade with a gentle swat and growl, a la mama cat.

But over the last few weeks they have taken to being much more aggressive much earlier in the night. We had to ban them from our room and close the door, which worked exactly one night until they figured out that clawing and crying at the door would wake us up. After a few nights of this, we took to using a water spray bottle when they did this, figuring they would figure it out. Well, all that did was teach them to scratch, howl, and then run down the stairs when they heard us stirring. And then come back and do it all over again.

Last night they woke us at 12:47, 2:04, 3:35, 4:15, 4:43, and finally I got up at 5 and fed them wet food (my normal wake up and feeding time for them). My wife and I are walking around at work like new-parent zombies. We are afraid of losing our jobs we are so tired!

We leave them plenty of dry food overnight, make sure their litter boxes are clean before bed, and they have lots of fresh water. I know they are lonely and want human time, but that is fine if they want to sleep with us--it is the paw to the face, jumping on our pillow and head, etc that is a major problem.

Any ideas? We are going to stack baby gates two high across the basement stairs and try to lock them in there tonight (they are amazing leapers), but I hate to do that to them and I am convinced they are going to crash through the gates sooner than later--they are pretty determined.

I really hate to think we need to give them up, but it is going to happen if this keeps up because we cannot survive like this.

Call Jackson Galaxy.

But seriously, you should not make your normal wake up time feeding time. Make them wait. Our last cat I fed upon waking and he always tried to wake me up early. Our current ones I do not ffed until leaving for work. They still wake me on weekends but not until my usual leave for work time.

Also, as hard as it will be to do,try ignoring them. They may for a while get more aggressive in trying to wake you up but eventually they will give up.

Ignore behavior you do not like and attend to behavior you do. Very hard to do in practice but it works for people as well as animals.

ramzzoinksus said:
Call Jackson Galaxy.

From watching his show I'd say play with them using a feather on a string type of cat toy until they are exhausted, THEN go to sleep.

My cat does this in phases; I think some of it has to do with noise. When we have the a/c on or a loud fan in our room she meows all night. Has something like that changed?

Also: I feed her at night, after the kids have gone to bed. Can you change the wet food feeding time

Water guns?

They are still kittens! They need exhaustive play time (and human interaction, not just with each other.) If they have full bellies and adequate exercise, they will sleep. My wonderful late vet, gave me this hint when I complained about the similar habits of my first cat. Feed them their regular amount of food in the morning. The feed them half of what you ordinarily will give them at dinner, and reserve the rest until right before you go to bed. Works like a charm. Remember, you train your cats, not the other way around. Good luck!

calliope said:
Remember, you train your cats, not the other way around. Good luck!

That is highly debatable among humans and no cats at all would agree.

As a temporary solution, can you set up an enclosed night time area for them as far from the bedroom door as possible? Then, at least you won't hear them howling, scratching, knocking over objects that make a loud noise when they fall, etc. while you are trying to sleep. As a longer term solution, I agree with giving them more attention and exercise during the day and altering their meal schedule as a means of bringing things back to what you would like to see as the norm.

Keep them out of your room and put a pet gate at the top of the stairs.

One of our cats used to start pawing our closed bedroom door around 3 a.m. every night and would continue for hours if we let her. This went on for 5 years. I never slept through the night.

Then....we put a pet gate at the top of the stairs and they stay downstairs until we wake up. They still start meowing if we think we want to sleep in - they let us know it's time to wake up and feed their little faces, but the pet gate was life altering.

Tjohn nails it.

baloney!

Our tux (the original ctrzcat) would destroy the nightstand, the bedroom, then the house until ctrzwife would get up and feed him at 530-6. He knew not to ask me as it rarely ended well for either of us.

So, our beloved rescue kitty angels (not) are not in charge of our lives?

I sympathize with OP and need suggestions too. Like having children who never grow up - constant sleep interruptions including head biting for extra attention. And people think cats are aloof.

I consider cats this age to be young adults. They still require lots of attention and exercise and as calliope said, full tummies for bedtime. The bite to the head just slays me; I could become physically strung out with that behavior… but you are not alone.

One of ours used to fling himself heavily onto my brother's face and neck, causing him to have nightmares about suffocating for many's the night, LOL! Then when my brother would not get up to kitty's satisfaction, the biting began in earnest. I felt sorry for both of them because neither one was happy.

He eventually had to crate the cats at night in the basement and let them upstairs to the main house every morning. It was the only thing that allowed my brother and his wife the sleep they needed!

God luck with finding a solution, OP!

I used to have a cat that would nibble on my hair in the middle of the night. Very disconcerting.

My mother's cat, Tigger, was firmly attached to getting up as soon as morning light started to filter into the house, and her shattering meow would wake the dead. Fortunately, more recently she has begun sleeping more soundly and doesn't get up with the sun any more. I tried feeding them all something at bedtime, but it didn't really help as far as I could see.

But it's sure worth a try. Plenty of play in the evening and a full tummy can only help!

Good luck with them. They are still pretty young and rambunctious at that age, so a little more maturity will probably help, too. If it doesn't, I think I would consider shutting them somewhere far from the bedroom with all the necessities overnight. That's what my parents used to do with their cats. They spent the night in the basement and were none the worse for it.

My wife put in ear plugs last night and life was better. That might be the solution for now. Since I am deaf, when I take my hearing aids out I hear nothing anyway.

The next step will be to install the double-height gates to keep them in the rec room, but we really do not want to do this to them.

Yes, they are still teenagers, and I play with them a lot at night--mostly because it is so much fun, but also because it tires them out. Except it does not tire them out. And when we feed them wet food, day or night, it gets them so excited that they bounce off of walls, so I am not confident feeding them at night will change things much.

I have two favorite cat-wakening stories.

One was my first girlfriend's cat (later my first wife). My GF had tapestries hung on her walls, with posters pinned on them. The cat would get behind the tapestry and climb up, rattling the posters really loudly. Always worked.

The other was our 12 pound cat, Max. I would be dreaming that there was a heavy weight on my chest crushing the breath out of me and wake with a start, only to find Max meatloafing on my chest and staring into my eyes with the biggest, widest, most intense yellow eyes you can imagine.

Ah, I do love the beasts, even as I sometimes want to kill them.

I can attest to the fact that many cats are pretty aerodynamic when thrown off of a bed at 4 in the morning.

Our dearly departed Elvis Portnoy had a whole repertoire of tactics to wake us up in the morning. When meowing loudly and sticking his paw in our ears didn't produce desired results, he would rattle the drawer handles. When THAT didn't work, he would fake throw up. Worked EVERY time.

He was crazy smart and lived to almost 18 years old. I still miss him every day...

I also liked the cat who would sit on our dresser and slowly slide one item (usually glass or metal) across until it fell off. Then the next one. And the next one. Until finally someone got up and tossed her outside.

When we finally removed everything from any surface, she started running up the back of the tapestries and rattling the posters (mentioned above).

Damned clever cat who could have served in the Inquisition in a different life.

Gotta say, these stories, which made me guffaw loudly, also remind me of why having indoor/outdoor cats had some benefits. I remember my parents putting Tigger out for the night, although she did learn how to scrabble up the wall into the planter outside their bedroom window, where she would use the ear-splitting yowl to good effect in the wee hours. That was before they started putting her in the basement. They never did get her to behave the way they wanted, and now I've inherited all that. Good thing she is kinda cute when she meatloafs on my chest or crawls into Mr. PeggyC's lap. He's a huge sucker for that kind of thing. ;-)

I had one cat who was the most beautiful little fluffernutter of a white calico kitten when I got her, about six months old and quite angelic looking. I named her Jasmine. She figured out within a few days that she could climb the curtains to the ceiling with a horrible tearing noise and then leap from the top onto the sofa before starting over. Very restful for us.

We were "bequeathed" our first cat (the cat on my lap) when she and her brother got into the habit of climbing up the drapes which hung on the wall directly beside our relatives' bed and then dive bombing onto the sleeping forms in the bed below. Since we did not have drapes in close proximity to our bed, we did not encounter this behavior and ended up with a wonderful cat whose memory we cherish to this day.

It's all so true!

Also the reason I *never* post on Facebook about the cats -- then people would know I'm as crazy as the cats are! ;-)

peteglider said:
It's all so true!
Also the reason I *never* post on Facebook about the cats -- then people would know I'm as crazy as the cats are! ;-)

Everyone who knows me on Facebook is already aware of my Cat Mania, probably since I post so many photos of them. So that ship has sailed. ;-)

Just this week, Mr. Cat comes down the stairs (inside the house mind you), with a live bird in his mouth.

Son flails frantically (of course, Mr. Cat was expecting praise and perhaps a treat). Cat drops bird.

Unclear whether cat or son more crazed to catch bird (son wins). Bird caged and continued to entrance cat, until it could be examined and judged to be reasonably uninjured - and let go.

(maybe bird fell down the fireplace chimney?)

I am enjoying the cat antics "tails"!Please keep them coming. Dive-bombing the sleeping forms below the drapes- HAH! HAH! HAH! I almost choked, I was laughing so heartily!

mfpark, our departed cat Booger did that. We called it playing hockey with the things on our dresser. So cute and annoying at the same time.

Our Niki does that, but I don't think she really means to. She is overweight and pretty much unaware of what some parts of her body seem to be doing, so she's become a bit of a bull in a china shop. Although sometimes she does get up on the bathroom vanity and push stuff around until it falls off. We can't keep breakables there!

Mischa, on the other hand, is not shy about getting on the bed and sitting right next to my face, sometimes digging with a paw at the covers to try to get under. He also tries to sleep on my pillow, wrapped around my head like earmuffs. Really good for allergies.

Eli would knock everything in sight down to wake us up. He gave warning with a meow. Then a tap. Then a louder meow. Then wacking it off the furniture. Whiskers and Mittens have not done that yet. Yet.

Well, now you've done it. As soon as they read this thread, you are done for.

We do make sure they never watch My Cat From Hell.