I have a cat. She’s about six months old and has lived with us the last three. At night, she sleeps on my bed, all cuddly-like, until 6am. Then she meows incessantly in my face until I either play with her or ignore her. She meows a lot, which means I sleep a lot less. It’s amazing–she wakes up every morning at 6am, as if she has a secret alarm clock or something.
My question is: can I get her to change her schedule? I like sleeping. If I lock her out of my room, she’ll just meow outside my door, and, anyway, it’s cruel. I’ve tried keeping her awake during day, so as encourage night sleeping (like with an infant), but she just sleeps when I leave the housae (the sneaky devil). Any help?
Get another Cat is my advice, your cat is bored and around 6 a.m. is usually a high activity phase for cats (especially young cats), with another Cat she can play and wreck havoc in you flat(house whatever). Then maybe she will let you sleep.
Another point when do you feet her? I having Cats for many years now recomend twice a day, mornings and in the afternoon. It could be that your cat is hungry when it screams.
That’s one of the joys of being owned by a cat. What you might want to do is keep some rolled-up socks next to your bed to toss at her. This doesn’t really work for me (same situation, with an hour difference. You must be in the Central time zone), so I usually have to stumble out of bed, get her some treats, and stumble back into bed for another hour.
Changing your own sleep schedule is also an option. As tough as it may be, it’s possible. Changing cats’ schedule is not.
HA! Good luck. My cat wakes me up at 7am all the time…I just roll over and ignore him. After about a month, he’s learned that when mommy rolls over, he needs to go play somewhere else. Well, most of the time. Sometimes he just runs all over the bed until I kick him out.
I’ve got two cats, and trust me, they don’t play together when they’re bored. They want their human awake and lively, not the other cat. My two used to do the exact same thing, only with me it was 5:30am. Feeding them was the only thing that made them shut up, so I got pretty darn good at groggily scooping out the Sheba and stumbling back to bed.
They no longer meow early in the mornings, though, and what seemed to stop it was rearranging the bedroom. I couldn’t tell you why, but since I moved the bed and some other furniture, they’ve stopped bugging me in the mornings. Go figure.
Wow, avacado, you have exactly described my cat! Rain or shine, weekday or weekend, he’s up and rarin’ to go at 6:00 a.m. He knows that the more he annoys me, the sooner I will give up and get out of bed, so he does stuff like scratch his claws on the wall (have mercy, cat!) and jump on my face. I haven’t found a remedy for this except ignoring him (next to impossible, but easier if I stayed out all night). Eventually he gives up and leaves my room. Any other ideas?
I’m a forced cat owner (my wife had the cat before we even met). The cat mostly leaves me alone, at first it assumed that another hiarless monkey meant another food source, oh how wrong it was. Not being a morning person when it woke me up during the first weeks it would promptly find itself forcefully deposited outside the bed room. Now it leaves me alone till I’ve finished my shower.
My cat tends to be an early riser as well, which is sometimes a good thing, because the cat has often gotten me to get up after I’ve slept through my alarm.
To encourage him to leave me alone in the wee hours of the day, I feed him right before I go to bed, so sometimes he’s eating at midnight or 1 am. This usually insures that he is not hungry at 6 am.
I play with him late at night, to get him tired out. He likes to chase around the light from a laser pointer – the best $20 I ever spent. He’ll chase the light at full speed, from room to room, and will leap over furniture and try to climb up walls. This tuckers him out, and he’ll be much quieter for a few hours.
Despite all this, there are still those days he feels the need to get me up bright and early. If I shoo him away, he thinks I’m playing – “Wow, she threw a slipper at me! Maybe if I nibble her toes again, she’ll throw the other slipper!”. So I try to ignore him as much as possible to show him that it is neither interesting nor fun to wake me up.
Our cats did this. They were hungry. I suggested that my wife ignore them, but she didn’t. Eventually it became a moot point – one of us had to get up then, anyway. Or maybe the cats trained US.
My little Siamese darling used to do this. Part of it was that she was hungry. Part of it was that I think she likes to piss me off when I’m sleeping to get me back for waking her up when she’s curled up on my lap. Use the water bottle. Keep it next to your bed, and while your aim may be off, the surprised look on your kitty’s face when your morning counter-attack begins is well worth it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my cat. But I adore that last hour of sleep.
On a side note, I’ve had a lot of different cats before, and as far as I recall, the only ones that woke me up early in the morning (well, woke my parents up when I was too young) were cats that went outside. None of the house cats, ones that never went outside, did this. Strange.
Our cat was an earlier riser. 2 am. This is when we
bought second cat, who kept him busy enough during the
day that he was actually somewhat tired at night.
Then both of them wanted us up at 6 am. Water pistols
are wonderful inventions. Pillows work, too. More
effort involved, but you don’t have to aim as accurately.
But the key that you have to learn is that anything
you do will be reactionary. Unless you have a very
smart cat (and very few people do), he won’t realize
that his waking you at 6 in the morning is going
to get him shot with a squirt gun. He may leave you
alone AFTER you shoot him with a squirt gun, but by
that time you may be permanently awake already.
It can also get worse. One cat of ours has had the
sniffles for the past week. Sunday morning, 7 am,
he sits on my chests and awakens me with a sneeze.
And here I am, Sunday morning, opening my eyes at
7 am to see a big wad of cat-snot flying at my head.
hmm… second cat. Maybe that’s what I need. When Bubba Ray first suggested getting another cat, I thought, “Hey, I like the cat I have now.” As for her being hungry at 6, I thought about that. After stumbling a few times into the kitchen, only to see a nearly full food dish, I realized she just wanted attention.
I hoped this was the kind of attention that involved a few minutes of petting followed by petting-less cuddling and sleeping. No no. She wants me to throw something. If this is the right kind of item, she will bring it back to me (very cute at 4pm, but certainly less cute at 6am). If not, she wants me to continue throwing items. She prefers toy mice, but since she’s lost all of hers, she also fetches rubber bands.
Anyway, thanks for the answers. She’s gotten especially whiny lately. Is it time for spaying? If I introduce another cat, any advice about age/gender? She’s about sixth months old, and a girl (if the pronouns haven’t given it away).
Cat advice? Get her fixed NOW…at 6 months…before you end up with the dreaded “Cat Orgy In My Bush” syndrome! (I did notice your cat is a she…fixing females makes them also do that really cool VROOM thing for no reason…if ya get another female ya can watch em race on linoleum floors.
Bob Barker impersonation “Spay or neuter your pet…thank you”
I’ve found that playing with the cat and getting it worn out before you go to bed helps it sleep longer. Also, keep the thermostat turned down until you get up. This will keep the cat curled up in a ball trying to stay warm. As a matter of fact, we started letting our cat sleep under the covers with us, so now HE doesn’t want to get out of bed either.
Avacado- don’t let the cat play with rubber bands- sometimes they swallow them- very bad. Laser pointer- very fun (don’t shine directly in eyes, of course).
Next as has been said before- some playing right before bedtime will often let you sleep in. Also a treat.
Try changing your cat’s sleep patterns. When you catch her sleeping during the day, or especially at night, wake her and play with her. Eventually, after maybe a couple of weeks of this, her sleep pattern will change and she’ll sleep through the night with you.
I actually lock my cat out of my bedroom. Her claws sink right into my sheets. But she has plenty of room to run around throughout the rest of the apartment so it’s not a problem. But when I first started locking her out of the bedroom, she was a terror, meowing through the door like crazy. I taught her not to meow through closed doors by opening the door, giving her a very stern “No!”, and closing the door. If she didn’t meow for a few minutes, I’d give her a treat and tell her “Good girl.” Only after a few weeks of this training, she stopped meowing through closed doors (well, not entirely, but she’s much better now).
Some cats can learn commands pretty well, it just takes time. From when she was a kitten, I taught my cat to stay when I said “stay.” It’s pretty funny, actually, to see her just sit there like a dog. One day she’ll bark and freak the hell out of me.
I’ve worked with an animal rescue & adoption organization for 4 1/2 years, and I can tell you without qualification that, if you want to get another cat, age and gender do not matter in the slightest degree. What matters are the personalities of the cats involved. Some cats hate other cats. Some cats only like submissive cats, whereas some cats want to play with a new companion. Since your cat is fairly young and playful, another young, playful cat would be a good choice. But, like Tequila said, get her fixed. NOW. There are far too many unwanted kitties in the world as it is.
As far as getting your current cat to settle down, she will. Someday. She’s still a kitten, and, until she grows up some, she’s going to be active. That’s just something you’ll have to deal with until she grows out of it.
My cats can tell time. They are fed at 7:00 am and 9:00 pm every day. If I sleep in till, say, 7:05, the little one is on my pillow meowing at me. Even if they eat late the night before. I’ve thought about resetting all of the clocks…
