Mine does. It doesn’t matter that she sleeps in my bed all by herself all day long. At ten thirty every night, she starts yowling at me. She jumps up on the computer desk or where ever I may be and starts with the head-butting. She wants to be petted and scratched, but what she really wants is for me to go to bed. She will sit next to me and stare at me and give out the occasional blood-curdling yowl. If that doesn’t work she will sit in the stairwell and yowl because it is louder there. If I happen to walk in the bedroom, she gets all eager and leaps onto the bed, ready to settle down…if I leave the room, she follows me and complains the whole way. If I can ignore her for 20 minutes she gives up. Oh, she climbs in my lap and sits on my chest while I type, but she at least stops yowling. And when I DO get into bed, she won’t even let me get situated and under the covers, she is so desperate to settle in.
And then, at 7:25 each morning, if I am not already out of bed, she starts in on me to get up. She yowls. She nudges. She nuzzles me. She rubs up against the CPAP mask to try to knock it off me. She knocks things off the nightstand. And if all else fails…she takes a bite of the hair at the nape of my neck and pulls, or she nibbles on my eyebrow. If I wake up enough to scratch her, or let her under the covers, she settles back down. But basically she wants me to get up and out of bed so she can have the warm spot.
She’s 17, and most of this behavior is new in the last year or so.
She would prefer if I stayed in bed with her all day, as long as I keep scratching her ears.
Does your cat try to control your sleeping habits?
My cat doesn’t care, but my dog thinks I should go to bed at 10:00 on the dot every night. When I don’t go, he gets pouty and eventually heads up alone.
My cat does have a wake-up time for me (or his Daddy, he doesn’t really care which) which used to be a workable 6:00AM, but now that the time changed has become 5:00 AM. As long as one of us gets up to provide kitty his wet food, then all is well. If we try to ignore him, he starts attacking our heads…
I could understand this if my cats needed to be fed, but they have a perpetual feeder and water. Though I will admit that if the water runs dry, she will wake me up to fill it…but she has a different cry and set of behaviors for that.
Mine has dry food available 24/7 so he shouldn’t need the early morning feeding. He gets wet food once a day and somewhere along the line he decided that should be at 5 AM.
He was a rescue too, you’d think he’d be a little more grateful and let Mommy sleep in!
Kittenblue, I have a 17 year old cat that has exactly the same pattern as yours. Her behaviors are also new in the last year. I am curious to see what is going to happen when summer rolls around; is she still going to demand to go to bed (where she sucks heat from my wife and I under the covers) every night, or will she be satisfied by the 90 degree ambient temperature?
My 10 year old female has done that same thing for years. She also tattles on the other two.
We almost called her “Lassie” because, as a kitten, she’d come tell us when the other cat shut himself in the second bedroom, which he did regularly. (We didn’t, because my daughter-in-law is from rural England and says it’s offensive. )
My meezer wants me to o to bed by 11 pm. He mostly meows and looks up the stairs, then at me. Headbutting kicks in by 11:30. For awhile he would attempt to pick me up and bodily drag me to bed, but this never worked, and he appears to have given up on it.
Neither of our cats care what time I go to bed, but Ophie always knows when I’m heading there and she comes along to snuggle up with me. Shadow isn’t so bothered, but I think he likes to know when I’ve to bed because then the house is his!
My cat will come and snuggle between the pillows on our bed at about 4 am so she can be there when we wake up, and any time I lay down during the day for naps she insists on snuggling under the blankets with me, and she will just lay quietly near me otherwise. When we go to bed she likes to sleep at the foot of my side, and occasionally move up to next to my head on the outside edge of the bed. I am almost always home nowadays so she doesn’t seem to have a bedtime for me, as I will almost always be near the bed all day [my computer is in the bedroom, and when I am not able to get out of bed I use the laptop on a hospital table]
I’m amazed at this behavior. Not that he has set your bedtime and attempts to bully you into obeying him, but that he’s given up on a project. Most meezers don’t think that quitting is an option.
Mine don’t nag. Taz just wants to nestle at my side. His preferred spot is near the small of my back between my sweetie and me. When he’s settled in and comfy, a grenade can’t dislodge him.
Once it’s dark outside, Ziva will bolt down the hall any time she sees me heading that way. I could be going to get a sweater or a tylenol, but as far as she’s concerned, I’m going to bed and she’s ready for skritches. Other than at bedtime, she won’t come to anyone for cuddles, and at night, she expects lovin’ from me.
Our newest, Hermes, doesn’t care when we go to bed, but if we don’t get up after the alarm goes off, he starts moving the shades (because he knows that annoys us). We’re supposed to get up after that noise, to feed him and then play with him.
I don’t have cats anymore, and they never sweat what time bedtime was, but boy two of our dogs do. When it starts hitting 9pm, you have to be careful about either yawning, stretching, saying “alrighty then”, “ok” or standing up. All of those are potential signals, not that we have trained, but that they have figured out. They launch off the couch/dog bed/wherever and fly up the stairs to go outside. If I’m not done for the evening, it ends up being a bit of a fiasco, because Skip will not let anyone else in the doggie door, so Samson and Otter are stuck outside in the cold. So first you have to call Skip in, then you have to call Samson, who is still outside just in case Skip is waiting for him. Dummies!
My dog will come in my office and growl at me if I am at the computer at “bed time.” Most of the time, tho, she will be fine if I put her to bed - follow her to the bedroom, let her jump up, tuck some blankets around her and give her a kiss. She’ll sleep without me then.
She wakes me up in the morning, too. About an hour to an hour-and-a-half before my alarm goes off. She stands in the door of my room and growls. I hate this because I never get 8 hours of straight sleep
Since we got the automatic feeders the boys leave us alone at night for the most part. Joey still insists that we be in bed before midnight though and if we aren’t he will climb up on me and go to sleep no matter where I am in the apartment.
Our recently departed old cat and the younger still alive one don’t have set bedtimes but they did/do have a job.
When you go to bed, you have to get situated just right. If you take too long, dont do it right, or fidget any after you are settled it will royally piss them off. They might even leave in huff.
If you do everything just right and lay there just right they will lay right beside you and “help” you get to sleep. After you get to sleep they then leave, having done their job. But, if you take too long they get up and leave anyway and you are on your own.
Yes! My Wonton thinks it’s time for us to go to bed around nine every night. If I’m sitting at the computer he comes to stare and shift his feet uncomfortably until I get up. If I’m not ready he wants to be in my lap but he’s not as cozy there.
As soon as I get into bed he crawls in and snuggles up next to me. I don’t think he moves all night.
I think my cat is convinced that she can perform the Jedi Mind Trick. Every night she sits near wherever I am and STARES, shifting her feet every once in a while. Eventually I go to bed, thus proving to her that she has the power. After pretending for a few minutes that she didn’t care, she’ll hop up with me.
If we have friends over I have to tell her to go to bed on her own. Sometimes she even does it!
As long as one of us gets up to provide kitty his wet food, then all is well. If we try to ignore him, he starts attacking our heads…
)