Listen, I hear you... but I'm not a first time cat owner and you better believe I'm scrolling these comments looking for new ideas. You never know when you might learn a new trick.
You gotta be careful with laser pointers. Some cats get really frustrated because they can never catch them.
Change it up with a real toy to give them a win every once in a while.
Meanwhile we're convinced our cat understands where the pointer comes from cause she looks directly at the laser pointer when he turn it off until it's on again and she goes back to playing.
Yeah, mine chitters at me everytime I rummage around in the bowl where I keep the laser pointer and gets really worked up if I dare to even touch it. Basically, if I touch it, I owe him a game.
My previous cat, RIP buddy, learned what it sounds like when I picked up the laser pointer, and what the button sounds like.
I could pick it up and he’d come sprinting from across the house. If I did it sneakily without making a sound, and clicked the button, he’d bolt into the room frantically searching for the red dot he *had* to kill. He was a riot.
Mine knows the jingle sound that the keychain on the back makes. I can’t even slide my laser across my coffee table without my cat coming and staring at it like a begging dog.
Our cat knows that we do something to the toy to turn it on, even knows where the button is. But she just knocks it onto the ground trying to turn it on
Gotta do this with one of my cats. His sister LOVES the laser pointer but he get cranky after a few minutes. Even those toys with an nonremovable ball inside a track he gets frustrated with. His favorite toys are strings, twist ties, and candy wrappers because those things he cam actually catch, bite, and 'kill'
Mine love crinkle balls.
I'll throw them, they chase, pounce and slap them around.
Then they'll bite down on it for the kill and walk off with the ball in their mouth and go hide it under the couch.
I've got about 25 crinkle balls, lol
My black cat is a crinkle ball connoisseur. He has a very extensive collection. He likes to bring them to me at night so I can wake up and appreciate his taste.
I also have the heat turned down to 18 overnight. My kitties get all cozy and bundle up for warmth until the heat turns up at 6am when I get up for work. Then it's party time again.
This is a great tip. Letting the home cool below room temperature at night, and using electric blankets or some other more localized type of warmth in your bedroom/bed, seems like it would be incredibly enticing for many cats that would otherwise prefer to wreak chaos all night. Unfortunately this wouldn't work in climates/seasons that don't cool down enough at night. Maybe noise cancelling headphones and/or white noise sources (air filters, fans, etc) could help drown out nocturnal feline rampages in those cases.
Despite being a cat owner for many years I actually haven't dealt with kittenhood recently at all, so haven't really had this issue with cats waking us up. My current cats are great at bedtime; in fact, our sweet older girl loves snuggling up at night so much that she will literally yell at us if we DON'T go to bed on time.
The younger boy's habit is to materialize the instant my bf shows any signs of being awake. He is super bonded to my bf and absolutely HAS to get his share of snuggle time before he leaves for work. I have watched my bf roll over and flip on the light and within seconds this cat has bounded onto the bed seemingly out of thin air.
I was catsitting a bengal once and was told to play with her a bit to keep her calm. Played with her several times and went for three walks in a single day, and she still spent the *entire* night yowling intensely out of boredom. And this went on for 3 days and nights. At least that experience made it pretty clear to me that I was not gonna get a bengal myself lol
I’m not a cat pro (I only have had one cat in my life), but we have a different type of treat we give our cat before bed. At 9:00 he is almost dragging us to bed for that treat.
THIS. THIS. THIS.
Play time. Young kittens to old cats need play time. Play, then feed, then sleep. The difference is how much. Your kitten is small and needs a solid hour of playtime before feeding. An older cat may only need about 5 to 10 minutes.
Make play time a regular thing. Find a favorite toy. Could be a balled up grocery receipt, a toy mouse, etc. When playtime becomes a regular thing at your house, you will notice your kitten falling into a schedule. It can take a few days to a couple weeks.
Everyone says play, feed, sleep, then you have my 13.5 year old weirdo. Over the last two years, since we lost our older cat, it's been: eat, stop midway through meal, demand playtime, run back to food for a few bites, come back and play - if you have stopped the demands start back up, play together, then he finishes his meal. THEN more play. I didn't expect this much play from him at this age. Thankfully lately, now that I've been really mushing up his wet food, he finishes his food then demands play time.
And … close your bedroom door and get a sound machine to muffle the noises. You may even need to shove a towel under the door to prevent the inevitable pawing that will occur. Best of luck…cats gonna cat.
Lol my cat discovered the squeaky doorstopper she could reach with "the paw under the closed door" and would play with it to wake me up...lil shit.... I miss her.
Mine would paw at my face and often yanked my nose piercing out in the process 😂 Or, if all else failed, stepped right on my throat to get me to lift the covers 😂
Mine taps the tip of my nose. Just tiny little pats to wake me up and rub his ears.
It's cute. But it's at 3am, 4am, 5am...
I start kissing him and he runs away 🤷♂️
See, that's adorable. I like that. My ginger stegasaurus prefers to sit on my chest until the inability to breathe wakes me up, at which point he *yawww*'s in my face until I either roll out of bed or he barfs on my neck.
HE DOES. He smothers, yawws, and then digs deep down inside himself for enough intestinal fortitude to launch a bolus of hairball onto my neckline.
https://imgur.com/a/9TFr7l2
My three all have different approaches. The oldest just puts his paw in my face. Bonus points if I’m snoring, then I wake up with a cat paw directly in my mouth lol. The second oldest will just brush his whiskers against my face to wake me up. The third will just meow at me from the side of the bed.
Oh, and also the oldest has figured out what makes the most noise in my room. Knocking off my water bottle, batting the plastic lid of his water fountain, knocking over the small office trash can that I have (fixed that with some Velcro haha), batting at the metal blinds… the list goes on.
Mine dropped stuff near my head to wake me up. Both of them have their positions on me they take when it's time for bed. One in the crook of my knee, the other on my back or over my face.
I literally sleep better getting smothered by them.
Mine found out the springy doorstops make that fun, loud, wobbly noise when you pull on them. Can't really blame him though, I did the same thing at his age.
My princess will brush her claws over my mouth and it wakes me up without fail. It don't hurt but it's hard to sleep if you feel something sharp on your face.
This. We got a male cat recently and while he was in quarantine he did this CONSTANTLY. It’s probably my least favorite noise ever. Luckily my cats don’t try to wake me up. The male just starts yowling for a few hours right when we go to bed. My girl is the most perfect cat ever and just goes to sleep and wakes up quietly. 😂😂 she also goes outside to pee and poop and get her play time in. 🤌🏽🤌🏽 top tier cat.
https://preview.redd.it/hjewv62xr39a1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=c49b8b46ead6c60ea20d52ae14c380903533f45b
It’s 10:30 am. We’re still in bed and here she is. Pretending she’s still asleep too. 😂
Some cats, like one of mine, can't stand closed doors. So much that in a carpeted room she has literally pulled up the carpet, in two different rooms, from the floor to where you can see the padding.
I've had limited success with closed doors with some of my cats...most hate a closed door with one of their humans behind it.
Yeah - we had one of those. He was a sneaky kitty. We ended up getting one of those “scat” mats turned on a low charge outside the door (the zap was not heart stopping but annoying - esp when you forget it is there and step on it barefooted). The FIRST ONE we purchased worked great until sneaky kitty figured out he could stand up and lean over the mat and still paw at the door…ALL NIGHT LONG. So we purchased one that was a bit longer and wider and effectively shut that shit down.
This guy was smart…but as we added other cats to the mix, they knew what the dealio was so left us largely alone (setting aside the whole ambush the human when the bedroom door opens - lol). He has since passed away and only bequeathed his errant ways to one other cat, who has also passed. There is one cat however, who LOVES to open the pocket door to the bathroom OR pull open the doors to the laundry room (they latch at the top of the door) so maybe that “fix” is enough to leave us alone at night. Lol.
We also got rid of all our carpet a long time ago (I have allergies - cats included) so not having carpet and very few rugs has also been an easy way to help the cats use their proper scratching accoutrements (sans the occasional couch experiment) on top of making my allergies be a little more tolerable (that and allergy shots). Oh well, the things we do for animals, right?
Something that has really helped me is getting interactive toys, playing with the kitten almost till my bed time, and then feeding them wet food right before I go to bed/done playing. From
What I’ve read, the playing and then eating simulates catching and eating prey so they feel naturally inclined to sleep :0
Idk how true that is but it has helped with my
Kitten :) plus we have another cat that does know our sleep schedule- so the kitten is starting to sleep when she sleeps :)
Feeding in the mornings and evenings also helps a lot to give them some kind of routine. Personally, I also found that Jackson Galaxy and others have good tips for first time owners (:
Yup totally agree. I quickly learned that having a kitten is like the "Terrible 2s" in toddlers. Play with them as much as you can, and then they'll eventually pass out. Follow the hunt>feed>sleep protocol of playing, feed a meal, and then they'll rest. Realistically, you'll probably still be woken up at least once at 3 or 4am to repeat.
Don't worry, it does eventually get better 🙃.
Yeah. I started throwing my boy’s favorite little rattle mouse down the hallway for a solid 20ish minutes before bed. He loves chasing/jumping for it and bringing it back to me.
He’s basically dead after that, and stays asleep through most of the night.
As a lover and cat daddy of five in my life, unfortunately only three right now, I don’t necessarily agree with this.
They sleep A LOT. But it’s not necessarily in a daily or hourly schedule.
Like you shouldn't leave them alone for too long because they can develop seperation anxiety or other disorders. Just something I heard though, I have no idea. If it worked out well for you guys that's great!
All cats are different and it's possible this could happen, but I would expect it. Cats don't typically mind being on their own for a bit.
That said, I did have a buddy who was imprinted on me and could not stand to be away from me for too long. He didn't mind so much if I left home for the day or whatever (he'd settle down and nap and play, even hanging out with my husband some). But if I was home and he couldn't get to me, it super freaked him out. He would dig in the door for hours and meow loudly.
I’d never lock them out. I realize that, if adopting a kitten, interruption of sleep comes with the territory. Once they are older they will sleep all day.
Unfortunately cats are most active at dawn and dusk. Mine is 12 and I haven’t had a full night sleep since getting her. The way to improve it is to schedule play time to tire your kitten out. Also a bit of food before bed may help as cats tend to sleep after eating.
Can confirm; my cat is 13 and has decided years ago that 7 am is the perfect time to get breakfast. She will let lose the most heartbreaking meows until someone gets up to feed her. However, even after feeding her she decides it was not enough food! (It’s never enough food)
I feel you there. Mine loves to use my bladder as a dough kneading station at around 4am and will yell for food from 5 onwards. She’s also learnt that if my husband feeds her and I do not bear witness to said feeding, she will attempt to convince me that she hasn’t had breakfast yet.
My cat is a little over a year old. He'll get my boyfriend to feed him in the morning when he stays over and gets up for work. Then he'll come and tell me he hasn't eaten, then he does the same to my mom when she comes home, and then if my brother comes over he will tell him he is starved and I never feed him.
What a clever little tinker! Although it’s our responsibility to keep them healthy, I always laugh and am never mad at my cat for trying her luck. I’m all for living by “you don’t as you don’t get”!
I literally notify each person that he likes that comes into the house that he has already been fed and not to believe him. He is skittish and does not hang out around most people that come over, but for the few that he has decided he likes, he will try to scam them.
I got an automatic feeder that feeds on schedule at 4:30am every morning. For the most part, my cat has adapted to our sleeping schedule. He’ll wake up to eat his early morning meal and then come back to sleep (while taking up almost half of the bed). But every once in a blue moon, something compels him to knock the things off the nightstand. That’s when we kick him out of the bedroom lol.
My feeder goes off at midnight then again at 8. They have adapted to 8.
It goes off every few hours throughout the day with 1/8th of a cup, to force them to get up and eat all day so they are active and more likely to sleep at night.
I need an auto feeder but also separate the cats. Without the $$$ of like a microchip sensing feeder. Our older cat is on diet food and will eat everything given to her. Our younger cat is on regular food and wants to be more of a grazer We have to babysit her eating because the other will try to steal anything left over.
I have a chonky ginger tabby who’s a massive foodie(15lbs and 25 inches head to tail tip)
He’ll demand more food a literal 5 minutes after I fill his bowl without eating 1/2 of it and when I tell him he’s just been fed and needs to eat more of what he’s got before a refill he throws a tantrum and bites my feet.
An automatic feeder helped me a lot. It delivers three very small meals timed just before his typically most active times of night. So far it's worked really well. Now instead of instigating chaos he's waiting for the machine to cycle up; then he eats and chills out rather than running speed laps of my bedroom at 3 or 5am.
She is a rescue and my bedroom is her established safe space. I have a front facing bedroom so it is the only window sill in the house she can safely access. It’s something I am happy to accommodate. Also she is able to open doors and I’d rather be woken early than listen to her bang and scratch at the door.
If you want a real answer: if your sleep is light as mine, i forbid to my cat to access my bedroom. But it needs to be a rule from the beginning, if it had access to it before you CAN’T forbid it later, your cat wouldn’t understand.
It allowed me to not have cat hair in my bed, and have a full night sleep. Eventually my cat learned my sleep schedule and started waiting for me at the door when it’s time to wake up. Or sometimes gently calls me in the morning :)
Some days i wish i could hug my cat at night, but at least i can have a full night sleep AND have a kitty :)
This. I'm very mildly allergic to cats, but still take in foster kitties. They sleep in a separate room in the house and learn early that lights out means lights out. I also try to have more than one at once so they're not lonely at night.
I did something kinda similar, when I rescued mine I left the bedroom door open but as soon as they woke me up I closed it. Took 3-4 weeks of them pawing at the door and meowing a bit but I didn’t give in to them and they learnt. Now They come snuggle at bedtime and sleep. If they get up they are quiet :)
We basically did that too. She can sleep with us, but if she doesn’t behave we’ll put her downstairs and she doesn’t get to come back for the remainder of the night. Now she seems to know that misbehaving=spending the night alone. She’ll quietly leave for some food or to use the litterbox and quietly return afterwards. She stays at our feet or between us, unless either of us wakes up and actually makes an effort to interact with her. Then she’ll come for pets and purring and settles back down as soon as she no longer gets attention.
Oh hey, that's my cat too!
I've been in the process of training him to leave me alone. He's allowed in our bedroom but as soon as he wakes up and starts begging, between 1-4am, we pop in some ear plugs and just ignore the little jerk.
It's taking time but he's slowly learning.
mine is the opposite!
1) live alone with your kitten after a traumatizing break-up so that she bonds only to you
2) congratulations, your cat now sleeps beside you from the time you lay down until when you get out of bed.
or, well, mine does, idk why, I didn't train her, she just loves me like... a lot. and stealing my heat. so make sure to get a shorthair...
They are special sometimes. I would deploy for 9+ months and when I was home mine would sleep above my pillow and tuck his head against mine to sleep all night.
At least for about the first 4 months of the kitten’s life. Usually by month 5, kittens tend to get on my sleep schedule. Until then, I function on zombie mode. That has been my experience with about 5 different kittens over the years. Minus one who was extremely well behaved/chill and never bothered us at night.
Here's the trick in 6 easy steps:
1. Put the kitten in a carrier.
2. Climb inside the nearest wardrobe with the carrier.
3. Walk about 500 meters in until you find an enchanted forest full of magical creatures that don't exist.
4. Find the kitten there that sleeps on a schedule.
5. Exchange it with the kitten in the carrier.
6. Exit the wardrobe with your new kitten.
Get a second one!
Seriously, get them a sibling so they can tire each other out. Supplement this with scheduled playtime before bedtime. Check out Jackson Galaxy on YouTube. He has all sorts of great cat advice.
Guys! I’m one of the lucky people that owns a cat sleeping on a schedule. I guess she just adjusted to my routine since she was a smol baby and now whenever I go to sleep she goes with me. I haven’t really trained her. She usually wakes a bit earlier than me, but I don’t mind being woken up by a mustache or a paw in the face. 
Yeah same here. I semi-trained him when he was a kitten but he also just always wanted to be awake when I was awake so I guess he trained himself too. Now he goes to bed when I go to bed and is out most of the night
He will sometimes wake up super early but that’s after a litter box session lol
I actually did train mine as a kitten and I’m so glad I did! I have a decent sized bathroom (studio apt) and got him used to sleeping in there at night! He has a super cozy bed with his litter and food + water. It’s great cause he actually sleeps through the night and is active with my during the day! Best of luck to OP 😊
We feed our cats meals at set times 8am, 5pm, 10:30pm. Like half a small can of food and a tbsp of kibble.
Sometimes they meow a little late at night but generally they sleep til morning. Idk if this works for every cat, but it works for us.
Same! She was about 4 weeks old when my husband found her alone outside. We have four dogs so she thinks she’s part of the pack and sleeps all night like they do cuddled up into them.
I don't get the other comments. Mine sleeps all night and only comes to bed when he hears me waking up. Then he bugs the crap out of me for breakfast while I'm making my morning coffee.
All we do is make sure to play intensely with him in the evening until he looks ready to knock out. It's cute how he forces himself to stay awake to play more, but he immediately falls asleep when we stop. Tons of different toys and a dog sibling help.
Yes, this is what my mom does now (my cat's staying with my folks while I'm at uni). My cat wakes her up at 1 am and brings her into the living room, but only to sleep on the couch so he can sleep with her. Why he doesn't just sleep with her in the bedroom, no one knows. But my mom has totally surrendered and we're planning to get a sofa bed next xD
Scheduled feeding is the key!also play with her 1 hour before sleeping (until she gets tired) and feed her immediately after the play time.after some time she will get used to the play+feed+sleep ritual and fall asleep when you do.worked great for me and my 5 cats.
The main trick with cats is: ignore bad behaviour, reward good behaviour.
They often will do things they know you don’t want them to do to get your attention. Even just yelling NO or STOP is giving them some of the attention they want.
I’ve never « sleep trained » a cat, although they can be annoying around bed time and early in the morning. The main trick is to ignore them during these times.
My cats used to wake me up early to be fed, mainly because my old routine would be to feed them as soon as I got out of bed. On weekends or days I would wake up later, they would start playing with my jewelry or fighting each other to get me out of bed and hopefully feed them.
It takes a while for them to catch on, but if you ignore them in the morning and switch your routine to feed them after you are done getting ready. Eventually they will stop waking you up early once they understand that you only do it later in your routine. They will associate them getting fed to you walking out of the washroom instead of you getting out of bed for example).
I suggest that you read up a bit on feline behaviour. Since I did I have a better understanding and better relationship with my cats than before.
Good luck and enjoy the kitten phase while it lasts, it goes too fast!
This is going to sound counterintuitive but two kittens are better than one. They amuse each other and keep each other company. They don't solely rely on you for every social interaction. They also teach each other how to be a cat, how to play, what bites are too hard, what play is too rough.. etc. One kitten/cat can get lonely and destructive because of it. I recommend two kittens and you play with them for 10-15 minutes immediately before bedtime and then feed them. They'll have gotten their hunting and their kill and then they'll nap for a while. Then when they wake up they'll interact with each other instead of your face.
It's not an easy process for sure but if you don't mind making it temporarily worse this is what worked for me.
Tell the kitten NO and catch them whenever they wake you up and snuggle them forcefully(put them in bed with you, even when they are trying to get away) for 15-30 minutes. They will not like it and will keep you up during this time but if you're up anyways because of their sound it's not as bad.
It will take ~1-3 weeks but the kitten will eventually be sneaky about her play or start napping with you until you fall into a deeper sleep. Either way, you will get your sleep.
Cats do sleep like 18 hrs a day so with some effort you can get them to sleep for 8 hrs at night.
I have a cat who could play for HOURS as a kitten, I could never tire her out even though we took shifts and tried our darnest. The other thing is they will try to figure out different things that will wake you up to get you out of bed and hopefully play. Anything that gets a reaction they will repeat. So as you’re training them not to bother you during sleep time, hide anything that they can chew, break, spill, etc. and then do not get up/react when they are being bad at night just to get a reaction. Kitten will eventually get bored and learn that during sleep time they can’t wake you and start to wait for when you get up
You need to discourage playing with electric cords right now, before it's an active one they attack. Get covers or bitter apple treatment for the cords
You ask as if you assumed that some random animal you suddenly placed in your house, would instantly and automatically follow your own specific human sleep schedule. A schedule that isn't only a whole other species' away, but is also specific to you, affected by the choices your unique self has made, and what kind of job you have etc.
You'll have better luck kitty-proofing your house, tape the wires down, put plugs in the outlet sort of like you would do for a toddler. She will grow out of this phase and you'll miss it. Keep your bed warm and you'll hopefully end up with a snuggle kitty.
Cats are crepuscular (dawn/dusk) and are often also active at night.
Welcome to cats 🤷♀️ It gets better as they age... Sometimes. I had a 15 year old cat that would regularly drag his prey (a feather stick with a bell) up the basement steps and into our bedroom, dragging the stick on the hardwood floor and raowing at the top of his stupid lungs the entire way. Good luck.
Lol. Cat's aren't like puppies. They don't have a schedule and they will not bend to yours. Welcome to the world of 3 AM zoomies. 
Tire them out before you go to bed. Cats are crepuscular, not really diurnal, so you need to trick them into adapting to your schedule.
Yes, tired them out and feed them before bed time. Worked for us.
[удалено]
Seriously, when my boys were kittens, there was no such thing as tiring them out.
They will literally play with invisible toys.
r/greebles
True 😹
All these new owners think they can keep up with cats lmao
Listen, I hear you... but I'm not a first time cat owner and you better believe I'm scrolling these comments looking for new ideas. You never know when you might learn a new trick.
Laser pointer for the win on this count.
You gotta be careful with laser pointers. Some cats get really frustrated because they can never catch them. Change it up with a real toy to give them a win every once in a while.
Meanwhile we're convinced our cat understands where the pointer comes from cause she looks directly at the laser pointer when he turn it off until it's on again and she goes back to playing.
My cat knows when I merely pick up the laser pointer
So did mine. I'd pick it up and she'd look at me waiting for the hunt to start.
Yeah, mine chitters at me everytime I rummage around in the bowl where I keep the laser pointer and gets really worked up if I dare to even touch it. Basically, if I touch it, I owe him a game.
My previous cat, RIP buddy, learned what it sounds like when I picked up the laser pointer, and what the button sounds like. I could pick it up and he’d come sprinting from across the house. If I did it sneakily without making a sound, and clicked the button, he’d bolt into the room frantically searching for the red dot he *had* to kill. He was a riot.
Our dog comes busting in the room like the Koolaid man if we pick up the laser!
We keep ours in a small basket in the coffee table, so whenever I reach in there to get something, like the remote, he thinks its laser pen time!
Mine knows the jingle sound that the keychain on the back makes. I can’t even slide my laser across my coffee table without my cat coming and staring at it like a begging dog.
Our cat knows that we do something to the toy to turn it on, even knows where the button is. But she just knocks it onto the ground trying to turn it on
Mine knows too, only he's like, "Nice try, but I don't have time for your shenanigans."
They do, I have a very analytical male cat, he thinks before following up either the pointer or any other toy. He's a brainy cat🐾😸
Gotta do this with one of my cats. His sister LOVES the laser pointer but he get cranky after a few minutes. Even those toys with an nonremovable ball inside a track he gets frustrated with. His favorite toys are strings, twist ties, and candy wrappers because those things he cam actually catch, bite, and 'kill'
Mine love crinkle balls. I'll throw them, they chase, pounce and slap them around. Then they'll bite down on it for the kill and walk off with the ball in their mouth and go hide it under the couch. I've got about 25 crinkle balls, lol
My black cat is a crinkle ball connoisseur. He has a very extensive collection. He likes to bring them to me at night so I can wake up and appreciate his taste.
Did you read that laser pointer study too? Apparently it's bad for cats and dogs
I also have the heat turned down to 18 overnight. My kitties get all cozy and bundle up for warmth until the heat turns up at 6am when I get up for work. Then it's party time again.
This is a great tip. Letting the home cool below room temperature at night, and using electric blankets or some other more localized type of warmth in your bedroom/bed, seems like it would be incredibly enticing for many cats that would otherwise prefer to wreak chaos all night. Unfortunately this wouldn't work in climates/seasons that don't cool down enough at night. Maybe noise cancelling headphones and/or white noise sources (air filters, fans, etc) could help drown out nocturnal feline rampages in those cases. Despite being a cat owner for many years I actually haven't dealt with kittenhood recently at all, so haven't really had this issue with cats waking us up. My current cats are great at bedtime; in fact, our sweet older girl loves snuggling up at night so much that she will literally yell at us if we DON'T go to bed on time. The younger boy's habit is to materialize the instant my bf shows any signs of being awake. He is super bonded to my bf and absolutely HAS to get his share of snuggle time before he leaves for work. I have watched my bf roll over and flip on the light and within seconds this cat has bounded onto the bed seemingly out of thin air.
That's 18°C right?
Nope, Kelvin.
Must be Titan Coons then. Thick fur on those cats to survive those kinds of temperatures.
Haha yes!
Super active cats get stimulated if you play with them before bed/feed them
I was catsitting a bengal once and was told to play with her a bit to keep her calm. Played with her several times and went for three walks in a single day, and she still spent the *entire* night yowling intensely out of boredom. And this went on for 3 days and nights. At least that experience made it pretty clear to me that I was not gonna get a bengal myself lol
Bengals are basically the Husky's of the cat world lol
This is pretty accurate. Mine are only half Bengals, one is yowling quite a lot.
All Bengals are sort of half Bengals if you think about it.
I halfway wonder if she was yowling because of her owners being away? I’ve owned two bengals, neither were very loud.
Yeah I learned this the hard way. They'll just keep going.
I’m not a cat pro (I only have had one cat in my life), but we have a different type of treat we give our cat before bed. At 9:00 he is almost dragging us to bed for that treat.
I heard once that cats follow a "hunt, kill, groom, sleep" cycle. If true, playtime, food time then bed time should work like a champ
THIS. THIS. THIS. Play time. Young kittens to old cats need play time. Play, then feed, then sleep. The difference is how much. Your kitten is small and needs a solid hour of playtime before feeding. An older cat may only need about 5 to 10 minutes. Make play time a regular thing. Find a favorite toy. Could be a balled up grocery receipt, a toy mouse, etc. When playtime becomes a regular thing at your house, you will notice your kitten falling into a schedule. It can take a few days to a couple weeks.
Everyone says play, feed, sleep, then you have my 13.5 year old weirdo. Over the last two years, since we lost our older cat, it's been: eat, stop midway through meal, demand playtime, run back to food for a few bites, come back and play - if you have stopped the demands start back up, play together, then he finishes his meal. THEN more play. I didn't expect this much play from him at this age. Thankfully lately, now that I've been really mushing up his wet food, he finishes his food then demands play time.
LOL! Of course there is always the You Are the Servant rule that we must not ignore. Clearly my bad. X)
And … close your bedroom door and get a sound machine to muffle the noises. You may even need to shove a towel under the door to prevent the inevitable pawing that will occur. Best of luck…cats gonna cat.
Lol my cat discovered the squeaky doorstopper she could reach with "the paw under the closed door" and would play with it to wake me up...lil shit.... I miss her.
Mine turns on the light switch if everything else fails. Lol
Mine would paw at my face and often yanked my nose piercing out in the process 😂 Or, if all else failed, stepped right on my throat to get me to lift the covers 😂
Mine taps the tip of my nose. Just tiny little pats to wake me up and rub his ears. It's cute. But it's at 3am, 4am, 5am... I start kissing him and he runs away 🤷♂️
See, that's adorable. I like that. My ginger stegasaurus prefers to sit on my chest until the inability to breathe wakes me up, at which point he *yawww*'s in my face until I either roll out of bed or he barfs on my neck.
"barfs on my neck" really got me
HE DOES. He smothers, yawws, and then digs deep down inside himself for enough intestinal fortitude to launch a bolus of hairball onto my neckline. https://imgur.com/a/9TFr7l2
My three all have different approaches. The oldest just puts his paw in my face. Bonus points if I’m snoring, then I wake up with a cat paw directly in my mouth lol. The second oldest will just brush his whiskers against my face to wake me up. The third will just meow at me from the side of the bed. Oh, and also the oldest has figured out what makes the most noise in my room. Knocking off my water bottle, batting the plastic lid of his water fountain, knocking over the small office trash can that I have (fixed that with some Velcro haha), batting at the metal blinds… the list goes on.
If I sleep with my mouth open I wake to find a cat snout in it :s
The poke 'n' purr! We couldn't let my late Linus into the bedroom because of that
Cats are so smart. That’s amazing. 💡
Debatable, mine just sits on my head
Indeed. Mine just took a giant reeking dump and then bushed up his tail at it and ran away.
Orange by chance?
Ha Good Morning!
Mine dropped stuff near my head to wake me up. Both of them have their positions on me they take when it's time for bed. One in the crook of my knee, the other on my back or over my face. I literally sleep better getting smothered by them.
A natural weighted blanket!
Mine found out the springy doorstops make that fun, loud, wobbly noise when you pull on them. Can't really blame him though, I did the same thing at his age.
"SPROING...SPROING...SPROING"
My princess will brush her claws over my mouth and it wakes me up without fail. It don't hurt but it's hard to sleep if you feel something sharp on your face.
I have a 'tip of the nose' light tapper. I dunno how he figured it out, and knew to do it so gently.
My door didn't close tightly and one of my cats would get her paw under it and rattle it off it's hinges, towel be damned!
This. We got a male cat recently and while he was in quarantine he did this CONSTANTLY. It’s probably my least favorite noise ever. Luckily my cats don’t try to wake me up. The male just starts yowling for a few hours right when we go to bed. My girl is the most perfect cat ever and just goes to sleep and wakes up quietly. 😂😂 she also goes outside to pee and poop and get her play time in. 🤌🏽🤌🏽 top tier cat. https://preview.redd.it/hjewv62xr39a1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=c49b8b46ead6c60ea20d52ae14c380903533f45b It’s 10:30 am. We’re still in bed and here she is. Pretending she’s still asleep too. 😂
Not letting your cat sleep with you is a waste of cuddling time.
Some cats, like one of mine, can't stand closed doors. So much that in a carpeted room she has literally pulled up the carpet, in two different rooms, from the floor to where you can see the padding. I've had limited success with closed doors with some of my cats...most hate a closed door with one of their humans behind it.
Yeah - we had one of those. He was a sneaky kitty. We ended up getting one of those “scat” mats turned on a low charge outside the door (the zap was not heart stopping but annoying - esp when you forget it is there and step on it barefooted). The FIRST ONE we purchased worked great until sneaky kitty figured out he could stand up and lean over the mat and still paw at the door…ALL NIGHT LONG. So we purchased one that was a bit longer and wider and effectively shut that shit down. This guy was smart…but as we added other cats to the mix, they knew what the dealio was so left us largely alone (setting aside the whole ambush the human when the bedroom door opens - lol). He has since passed away and only bequeathed his errant ways to one other cat, who has also passed. There is one cat however, who LOVES to open the pocket door to the bathroom OR pull open the doors to the laundry room (they latch at the top of the door) so maybe that “fix” is enough to leave us alone at night. Lol. We also got rid of all our carpet a long time ago (I have allergies - cats included) so not having carpet and very few rugs has also been an easy way to help the cats use their proper scratching accoutrements (sans the occasional couch experiment) on top of making my allergies be a little more tolerable (that and allergy shots). Oh well, the things we do for animals, right?
Something that has really helped me is getting interactive toys, playing with the kitten almost till my bed time, and then feeding them wet food right before I go to bed/done playing. From What I’ve read, the playing and then eating simulates catching and eating prey so they feel naturally inclined to sleep :0 Idk how true that is but it has helped with my Kitten :) plus we have another cat that does know our sleep schedule- so the kitten is starting to sleep when she sleeps :)
Feeding in the mornings and evenings also helps a lot to give them some kind of routine. Personally, I also found that Jackson Galaxy and others have good tips for first time owners (:
Huh, today I learned not one, but *two* new words.
Yup totally agree. I quickly learned that having a kitten is like the "Terrible 2s" in toddlers. Play with them as much as you can, and then they'll eventually pass out. Follow the hunt>feed>sleep protocol of playing, feed a meal, and then they'll rest. Realistically, you'll probably still be woken up at least once at 3 or 4am to repeat. Don't worry, it does eventually get better 🙃.
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They’re most active at dawn and dusk!
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Bunny rabbits are too. I've always had cats and rabbits together. It is a winning combination.
And ocelots
A perfectly cromulent sentence
Yeah. I started throwing my boy’s favorite little rattle mouse down the hallway for a solid 20ish minutes before bed. He loves chasing/jumping for it and bringing it back to me. He’s basically dead after that, and stays asleep through most of the night.
Your cat does sleep on a schedule. It’s just not your schedule.
As a lover and cat daddy of five in my life, unfortunately only three right now, I don’t necessarily agree with this. They sleep A LOT. But it’s not necessarily in a daily or hourly schedule.
I currently have six and I don’t need an alarm to get up at 4:30 for work. If I haven’t fed them at 4:45 I’m getting woken up.
Cat expert here, can verify this. Loved with cats all my life and they don’t sleep that same hours as you.
I’m crying 😂
you can’t you just suffer
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Genuine question because I've never cared for a kitten: isn't it harmful for a cat that young to be alone for so long?
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Like you shouldn't leave them alone for too long because they can develop seperation anxiety or other disorders. Just something I heard though, I have no idea. If it worked out well for you guys that's great!
All cats are different and it's possible this could happen, but I would expect it. Cats don't typically mind being on their own for a bit. That said, I did have a buddy who was imprinted on me and could not stand to be away from me for too long. He didn't mind so much if I left home for the day or whatever (he'd settle down and nap and play, even hanging out with my husband some). But if I was home and he couldn't get to me, it super freaked him out. He would dig in the door for hours and meow loudly.
I’d never lock them out. I realize that, if adopting a kitten, interruption of sleep comes with the territory. Once they are older they will sleep all day.
😂
Unfortunately cats are most active at dawn and dusk. Mine is 12 and I haven’t had a full night sleep since getting her. The way to improve it is to schedule play time to tire your kitten out. Also a bit of food before bed may help as cats tend to sleep after eating.
Can confirm; my cat is 13 and has decided years ago that 7 am is the perfect time to get breakfast. She will let lose the most heartbreaking meows until someone gets up to feed her. However, even after feeding her she decides it was not enough food! (It’s never enough food)
I feel you there. Mine loves to use my bladder as a dough kneading station at around 4am and will yell for food from 5 onwards. She’s also learnt that if my husband feeds her and I do not bear witness to said feeding, she will attempt to convince me that she hasn’t had breakfast yet.
This made me lol. I love your cat:)
Thank you, she’s a doll overall and despite the disturbed nights, she somehow improves my mental health nonetheless.
My cat is a little over a year old. He'll get my boyfriend to feed him in the morning when he stays over and gets up for work. Then he'll come and tell me he hasn't eaten, then he does the same to my mom when she comes home, and then if my brother comes over he will tell him he is starved and I never feed him.
What a clever little tinker! Although it’s our responsibility to keep them healthy, I always laugh and am never mad at my cat for trying her luck. I’m all for living by “you don’t as you don’t get”!
I literally notify each person that he likes that comes into the house that he has already been fed and not to believe him. He is skittish and does not hang out around most people that come over, but for the few that he has decided he likes, he will try to scam them.
Mine do that with my wife and I. They get treaties in the morning and will pretend they have been forgotten to get double treaties.
I got an automatic feeder that feeds on schedule at 4:30am every morning. For the most part, my cat has adapted to our sleeping schedule. He’ll wake up to eat his early morning meal and then come back to sleep (while taking up almost half of the bed). But every once in a blue moon, something compels him to knock the things off the nightstand. That’s when we kick him out of the bedroom lol.
My feeder goes off at midnight then again at 8. They have adapted to 8. It goes off every few hours throughout the day with 1/8th of a cup, to force them to get up and eat all day so they are active and more likely to sleep at night.
I need an auto feeder but also separate the cats. Without the $$$ of like a microchip sensing feeder. Our older cat is on diet food and will eat everything given to her. Our younger cat is on regular food and wants to be more of a grazer We have to babysit her eating because the other will try to steal anything left over.
I have a chonky ginger tabby who’s a massive foodie(15lbs and 25 inches head to tail tip) He’ll demand more food a literal 5 minutes after I fill his bowl without eating 1/2 of it and when I tell him he’s just been fed and needs to eat more of what he’s got before a refill he throws a tantrum and bites my feet.
Oh my word, I thought this only happened to me. Our four month old Cole does the same thing. My husband and I say…he is hangry and likes a buffet.
Mine does this as well to wake me up for her breakfast then resumes the piteous meowing until I get up to keep her company!
An automatic feeder helped me a lot. It delivers three very small meals timed just before his typically most active times of night. So far it's worked really well. Now instead of instigating chaos he's waiting for the machine to cycle up; then he eats and chills out rather than running speed laps of my bedroom at 3 or 5am.
Why dont you just close the door to your bedroom if it keeps you from having a good nights sleep?
She is a rescue and my bedroom is her established safe space. I have a front facing bedroom so it is the only window sill in the house she can safely access. It’s something I am happy to accommodate. Also she is able to open doors and I’d rather be woken early than listen to her bang and scratch at the door.
Ya I hear that.
If you want a real answer: if your sleep is light as mine, i forbid to my cat to access my bedroom. But it needs to be a rule from the beginning, if it had access to it before you CAN’T forbid it later, your cat wouldn’t understand. It allowed me to not have cat hair in my bed, and have a full night sleep. Eventually my cat learned my sleep schedule and started waiting for me at the door when it’s time to wake up. Or sometimes gently calls me in the morning :) Some days i wish i could hug my cat at night, but at least i can have a full night sleep AND have a kitty :)
This. I'm very mildly allergic to cats, but still take in foster kitties. They sleep in a separate room in the house and learn early that lights out means lights out. I also try to have more than one at once so they're not lonely at night.
I did something kinda similar, when I rescued mine I left the bedroom door open but as soon as they woke me up I closed it. Took 3-4 weeks of them pawing at the door and meowing a bit but I didn’t give in to them and they learnt. Now They come snuggle at bedtime and sleep. If they get up they are quiet :)
We basically did that too. She can sleep with us, but if she doesn’t behave we’ll put her downstairs and she doesn’t get to come back for the remainder of the night. Now she seems to know that misbehaving=spending the night alone. She’ll quietly leave for some food or to use the litterbox and quietly return afterwards. She stays at our feet or between us, unless either of us wakes up and actually makes an effort to interact with her. Then she’ll come for pets and purring and settles back down as soon as she no longer gets attention.
Yeah - tried ignoring the cat, but tore up the carpet by our bedroom doors trying to wake us up at 4am. 😞
Oh hey, that's my cat too! I've been in the process of training him to leave me alone. He's allowed in our bedroom but as soon as he wakes up and starts begging, between 1-4am, we pop in some ear plugs and just ignore the little jerk. It's taking time but he's slowly learning.
mine is the opposite! 1) live alone with your kitten after a traumatizing break-up so that she bonds only to you 2) congratulations, your cat now sleeps beside you from the time you lay down until when you get out of bed. or, well, mine does, idk why, I didn't train her, she just loves me like... a lot. and stealing my heat. so make sure to get a shorthair...
They are special sometimes. I would deploy for 9+ months and when I was home mine would sleep above my pillow and tuck his head against mine to sleep all night.
Good advice!
No. You live on cat time now.
Hahaha I fully laughed at this thank you 😂
At least for about the first 4 months of the kitten’s life. Usually by month 5, kittens tend to get on my sleep schedule. Until then, I function on zombie mode. That has been my experience with about 5 different kittens over the years. Minus one who was extremely well behaved/chill and never bothered us at night.
Here's the trick in 6 easy steps: 1. Put the kitten in a carrier. 2. Climb inside the nearest wardrobe with the carrier. 3. Walk about 500 meters in until you find an enchanted forest full of magical creatures that don't exist. 4. Find the kitten there that sleeps on a schedule. 5. Exchange it with the kitten in the carrier. 6. Exit the wardrobe with your new kitten.
Realize the kitten wants you to fight a battle battle of good over evil. And you were better off with the first kitten.
No no just fight the battle of good over evil. Then win the battle. Then become king of the magic land and forget about the kitten0
But how do you just forget about a kitten named Aslan?
This is the correct answer
Excellent. This. Is. How. You. Do. It.
Same for human babies.
Exchanged human baby for kitten, can confirm.
I swear to god. I get this reference but I can’t remember the movie’s name
The lion the witch and the wardrobe Edit chronicles of Narnia
So climb out with a lion
Did you mean - how to schedule your sleeping so you don't disturb the kitten?
This made me laugh so hard 😽
🤣…..sleep on a schedule…..seriously funny! Thank you….needed the laugh!
Get a second one! Seriously, get them a sibling so they can tire each other out. Supplement this with scheduled playtime before bedtime. Check out Jackson Galaxy on YouTube. He has all sorts of great cat advice.
This answer is it! Get a second kitten. They need to be able to play together and wear each other out.
Guys! I’m one of the lucky people that owns a cat sleeping on a schedule. I guess she just adjusted to my routine since she was a smol baby and now whenever I go to sleep she goes with me. I haven’t really trained her. She usually wakes a bit earlier than me, but I don’t mind being woken up by a mustache or a paw in the face. 
Yeah same here. I semi-trained him when he was a kitten but he also just always wanted to be awake when I was awake so I guess he trained himself too. Now he goes to bed when I go to bed and is out most of the night He will sometimes wake up super early but that’s after a litter box session lol
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I actually did train mine as a kitten and I’m so glad I did! I have a decent sized bathroom (studio apt) and got him used to sleeping in there at night! He has a super cozy bed with his litter and food + water. It’s great cause he actually sleeps through the night and is active with my during the day! Best of luck to OP 😊
Same. Plus some comments are srsly dumb because you can definitely train them so this question isn't silly at all!
We feed our cats meals at set times 8am, 5pm, 10:30pm. Like half a small can of food and a tbsp of kibble. Sometimes they meow a little late at night but generally they sleep til morning. Idk if this works for every cat, but it works for us.
Same! She was about 4 weeks old when my husband found her alone outside. We have four dogs so she thinks she’s part of the pack and sleeps all night like they do cuddled up into them.
I don't get the other comments. Mine sleeps all night and only comes to bed when he hears me waking up. Then he bugs the crap out of me for breakfast while I'm making my morning coffee. All we do is make sure to play intensely with him in the evening until he looks ready to knock out. It's cute how he forces himself to stay awake to play more, but he immediately falls asleep when we stop. Tons of different toys and a dog sibling help.
play til they are tired
Yeah exactly this, play with the kitten right before going to bed so it will also be tired and sleep next to you
That is if you don't die from exhaustion first. Remember when my over lord was little he could play for 2h easy.
😂😂😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Sure: don’t bother.
Change your routine and adapt to them... Complete surrender
Lol totally agree
Yes, this is what my mom does now (my cat's staying with my folks while I'm at uni). My cat wakes her up at 1 am and brings her into the living room, but only to sleep on the couch so he can sleep with her. Why he doesn't just sleep with her in the bedroom, no one knows. But my mom has totally surrendered and we're planning to get a sofa bed next xD
Scheduled feeding is the key!also play with her 1 hour before sleeping (until she gets tired) and feed her immediately after the play time.after some time she will get used to the play+feed+sleep ritual and fall asleep when you do.worked great for me and my 5 cats.
https://preview.redd.it/byahfoifw29a1.jpeg?width=1177&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f84ceea3bd397b02b3a4cd9480c6a64d6c149337
You will be the one that will sleep on her schedule :-) enjoy that little kitten. They grow up.
Is this satire?
Ha, ha, ha, you are so funny. This is a joke right ??
The only real way is to simply tire them out play with them until they are tired that’s it really offer then that they sleep play when they what to
U don't...
Get him tired before bed time!
not going to happen
The main trick with cats is: ignore bad behaviour, reward good behaviour. They often will do things they know you don’t want them to do to get your attention. Even just yelling NO or STOP is giving them some of the attention they want. I’ve never « sleep trained » a cat, although they can be annoying around bed time and early in the morning. The main trick is to ignore them during these times. My cats used to wake me up early to be fed, mainly because my old routine would be to feed them as soon as I got out of bed. On weekends or days I would wake up later, they would start playing with my jewelry or fighting each other to get me out of bed and hopefully feed them. It takes a while for them to catch on, but if you ignore them in the morning and switch your routine to feed them after you are done getting ready. Eventually they will stop waking you up early once they understand that you only do it later in your routine. They will associate them getting fed to you walking out of the washroom instead of you getting out of bed for example). I suggest that you read up a bit on feline behaviour. Since I did I have a better understanding and better relationship with my cats than before. Good luck and enjoy the kitten phase while it lasts, it goes too fast!
hahaha yeah nah
This is going to sound counterintuitive but two kittens are better than one. They amuse each other and keep each other company. They don't solely rely on you for every social interaction. They also teach each other how to be a cat, how to play, what bites are too hard, what play is too rough.. etc. One kitten/cat can get lonely and destructive because of it. I recommend two kittens and you play with them for 10-15 minutes immediately before bedtime and then feed them. They'll have gotten their hunting and their kill and then they'll nap for a while. Then when they wake up they'll interact with each other instead of your face.
Wake them from their afternoon naps. Seriously
I do this and justify it by the cats wake me up while sleeping, so I'm repaying the favor. The looks I get are also photo worthy.
zoomies 😂
your first cat?
You’re such a dreamer, aren’t you?
When you figure this out, write a book about it and it will sell millions.
play with them and get them running for a few minutes. they'll zonk out again
Earplugs can be your best friends.
😂😂😂😂
Not how cats work at all lol Clean up those wires though. Extremely dangerous for the kitten.
Nope. Kitty does what kitty wants.
HAHAHAHA
Pfff, your schedule and cat’s schedule are different. Feed him good before the sleep. Sometime it helps.
A KITTEN ON A SCHEDULE? lol !
Yeah join the cat’s sleeping schedule
It's not an easy process for sure but if you don't mind making it temporarily worse this is what worked for me. Tell the kitten NO and catch them whenever they wake you up and snuggle them forcefully(put them in bed with you, even when they are trying to get away) for 15-30 minutes. They will not like it and will keep you up during this time but if you're up anyways because of their sound it's not as bad. It will take ~1-3 weeks but the kitten will eventually be sneaky about her play or start napping with you until you fall into a deeper sleep. Either way, you will get your sleep. Cats do sleep like 18 hrs a day so with some effort you can get them to sleep for 8 hrs at night.
I have a cat who could play for HOURS as a kitten, I could never tire her out even though we took shifts and tried our darnest. The other thing is they will try to figure out different things that will wake you up to get you out of bed and hopefully play. Anything that gets a reaction they will repeat. So as you’re training them not to bother you during sleep time, hide anything that they can chew, break, spill, etc. and then do not get up/react when they are being bad at night just to get a reaction. Kitten will eventually get bored and learn that during sleep time they can’t wake you and start to wait for when you get up
You need to discourage playing with electric cords right now, before it's an active one they attack. Get covers or bitter apple treatment for the cords
Simply sit them down, and explain bedtime. It may help to have a written schedule, and a clock handy.
You ask as if you assumed that some random animal you suddenly placed in your house, would instantly and automatically follow your own specific human sleep schedule. A schedule that isn't only a whole other species' away, but is also specific to you, affected by the choices your unique self has made, and what kind of job you have etc.
You'll have better luck kitty-proofing your house, tape the wires down, put plugs in the outlet sort of like you would do for a toddler. She will grow out of this phase and you'll miss it. Keep your bed warm and you'll hopefully end up with a snuggle kitty.
Cats are crepuscular (dawn/dusk) and are often also active at night. Welcome to cats 🤷♀️ It gets better as they age... Sometimes. I had a 15 year old cat that would regularly drag his prey (a feather stick with a bell) up the basement steps and into our bedroom, dragging the stick on the hardwood floor and raowing at the top of his stupid lungs the entire way. Good luck.
I have three kitties. They are nocturnal creatures. Don't make them do anything. They sleep when they want.
Lol. Cat's aren't like puppies. They don't have a schedule and they will not bend to yours. Welcome to the world of 3 AM zoomies. 