If I start feeding him before I go to bed instead of when I wake up, will he eventually let me sleep until my alarm clock rings?
Because some morning soon I am going to feed him to the neighbor’s rotweiller
I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot. Ours free-feed from a dispenser of dry, so if they get a bit peckish in the morning they can have a bite without waking us up.
The only problem there is that Pixel is convinced she is the last line of defense if the alarm clock doesn’t go off. It doesn’t matter that it’s Saturday. It’s past 5:45. They must be awakened!
I feed my cat her wet food every night at 10pm - it never stopped her from bothering me once I was in bed, though. What has worked is a spray bottle of water kept on the nightstand - she gets spritzed if she comes in howling after bedtime, and having a good ten - fifteen minute play session just before I go to bed. She very, very, very rarely howls at ohgodthirty since I started the dual approach.
Our cats have access to food 24/7.
That still does not stop them from waking us up anytime at night. They don’t howl, demand allowance or car keys, and the phone never rings for them.
Probably. We’ve never fed the Neville kitties immediately when we wake up- they wait until I’ve showered and had breakfast. They don’t try to wake us up to feed them.
They usually still have dry food in their bowl when I feed them in the morning. They don’t eat all their food at once- they seem to prefer to “graze” a few bites at a time throughout the day.
<<<Reaches back to the dim memories before cat exposure made lungs attempt to self-destruct…>>>
Nope.
Actually, it may slightly increase your chances of sleeping past 6 AM. We got in the habit of putting out a fresh envelope of Tender Vittles just before our bedtime, and that bought us a half-hour of reprieve some mornings. But not much more than that. The Sweetest Kitties In The World ™ had to come and remind us - with motorboat purrs - just how Sweet And Adorable they were and how SURELY we didn’t want to starve such LOVING kitties to death.
Damn, I miss those critters 
Sorry, no photos… this was back in the days of the dinosaurs when digital cameras did not exist
It depends on the cat. We were able to do just that with our cat. We feed him around when we have dinner, and he doesn’t wake us up yowling in the morning and, for the most part leaves us alone during the night. We don’t leave food out for him all day, either.
Cats I’ve had in the past wouldn’t stand for this, and would still wake me up first thing in the morning. YCMMV.
You could always get one of those timed feeders.
Keep snacks by the bed. When she howls put two or three on the floor next to the bed and that should be enough to make her be quiet if all she wants is food. However, I have found that my overlord doesn’t wake me up for food (he free feeds) but instead wakes me up just to be sure I am alive and well and paying attention to him.
No. Because she doesn’t want food. She wants you to love her up.
Shoshana nailed it. My cats (2) wake me up every damn morning at about 6 o’clock, and I know it’s not because they’re hungry 'cause they have food aplenty if they want some. They just come in to say “All right now you lazy tenant of our house, time to take care of us.”
Both Hallcats are not allowed in my bedroom–I sleep with the door closed, and them on the other side, otherwise I wake up with my eyes swollen shut and my sinus firmly clogged. Both, however, are sitting by the door when I open it each morning. (Oddly enough neither cries or scratches at the door.)
Like Anne Neville, the Hallcats are NOT fed first thing in the morning. Although they have access to dry food 24/7, they typically get additional (fresh) dry food once I’m up, showered, dressed, fed the Hallbunny and cleaned out the dishwasher of clean dishes. They almost always wait patiently for me to dump dry food into their dish and give them fresh water. They were forced to give up canned food once the vet remarked that Maya (Hallcat #2) was “pudgy”.
Sorry, but contrary to what pbbth recommendeds, I would advise not feeding them snacks at the bedside, as I think this would only reinforce the “if I wake her up, I’ll get food/attention” concept.
My cats have trained me to feed them four times a day and they also have a tendency to wake me up at night. (I say “they” when I really should say “he”…I have one bad cat and the other just follows his lead).
Anyway, I got a book from the library about cat training, and the recommendation was to not feed the cats right when you get up. I was doubtful, but I’ve started feeding them about an hour later, and I’m seeing a lot of improvement already.
The book further recommended that if the cat wakes you at night, you should shut him up in the litterbox room. I’m sort of doing that too, but since I have one bad cat and one good cat, I’d either have to lock them both up or shut good cat away from the litterbox. I compromise by putting the bad cat in the room by himself for just a few minutes, and that seems to be helping too.
I keep the cats on the other side of two doors, because the first one used to cry in the mornings. He doesn’t do that anymore, but I can’t imagine sleeping with wriggly nocturnal animals anyway. I don’t feed them right when I get up, though, they get fed after I take a shower.
My little guy likes to play in the middle of the night – it has nothing to do with food, for he always has food available.
Just to avoid being banned, here are some of pics of Buddy:
Buddy and me just hanging out: http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeper/DragonsOfHopeUniform.jpg
Buddy decorating the Christmas tree: http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeper/BuddyDecoratingChristmasTree.JPG
Buddy and his girfriend from next door:
http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeper/20061231162110000.jpg
Our cat is pretty much like Shoshona and ** Intelligently Designed** describe - on an average morning he just comes for purring, hair licking and a nap with human warmth either on chests and heads or just under the covers. It is only on weekends that he starts the chirupping nagging to get up and DO SOMETHING !!
He was caught napping recently when we had to get up extra early for a flight, he hadn’t joined us and when the alarm clock went off he was down there (he sleeps on top of the wardrobe …) for his snuggles quicker than a very quick thing.