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About to lose my mind from lack of sleep due to our cat!

2K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  Nuliajuk 
#1 ·
I'd say it's been about 2 months now that one of our cats, Ichi, has decided she wants us up way earlier than we want to get up. About mid-December she started waking us up about 4:30AM by scratching at the covers or the carpet or the door and vocalizing. She will come to bed with us every night and happily lay down and go to sleep immediately, but its like she has an alarm and decides its time to get up and wake us up. We've tried putting her out of our bedroom at night but she will then come back to the closed door at 4:30 and and start meowing, scratching and throwing herself at the door. We've tried to ignore it but it goes on forever and it drives us nuts. I usually end up getting up and going out to the couch to sleep which seems to keep her quiet. Now the wake up time has been getting even earlier, around 2:30 or 3AM and that is just not acceptable! The thing is, she's not hungry. I'll feed our other 3 cats and they eat but she doesn't, at least not until much later. We have window seats everywhere, a cat tree, toys but I don't know what she wants.

And to add to her, our other cats have started driving me crazy in the morning too. When I get up and go lay on the couch, it may quiet Ichi, but another one, Bubu, will yowl at her bowl because she wants to be fed, but I'm not about to begin feeding them at 3AM. I grab her and try to get her to lay next to me but she hops off and goes back to sit by her bowl. Then another one, Momo, will start scratching at the front door wanting out, which I am also not doing at 3AM. If the stars align, and they all end up being quiet, I can fall asleep for a brief period, but that rarely happens. Meanwhile my husband ends up sleeping okay because i'm dealing with trying to keep the cats quiet so he can sleep. He'll just be grumpy if he doesn't get his beauty rest. I'll be tired, but at least I won't be a jerk!

We don't have a basement, nor do we have a room to put them into. I mean, we could put them into the computer room, but that is right across the hall from the bedroom and they would immediately claw up the carpet and the door to get out. I wish we had our previous house (before we had all the cats). It had a breezeway connected to the kitchen with a door. We could close the kitchen door and they could have the breezeway and another room to run around in all night while we slept.
 
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#2 ·
This is a BIG problem for a lot of people, especially now that the days are getting longer and dawn is coming earlier. Really the only room you have besides your computer room is the bathroom, so could you set it up with cat bed(s) in there + litter pan, food, water? The problem is that as soon as you respond to meowing or whatever, they know they've got your attention. The best thing is to do nothing! Get ear plugs. You could also buy a food dish that releases food from time to time. Amazon has a variety of automatic cat feeders, some fancier than others, so pick one and see if that doesn't make a difference. If they find that they're meowing, clawing the carpet, bumping the door gets a reaction from you the more they will do it. Ignore them. Also don't let them in the bedroom for your night's sleep. Cats do like to snuggle in bed and I enjoy it too, and they will like to do that if you invite them in for a short nap/rest after work late in the day or whenever. My cats have always been satisfied with that arrangement, and at night sleep on a sofa outside the bedroom door, and rarely ever bother me....sometimes one will scratch at the carpet or meow at the door but gives up soon as I never respond. Been there, done that and having a disturbed sleep is awful and unhealthy. I can't function the next day very well if I don't get a good night's sleep. Hope some of these suggestions work for you. Sweet dreams!
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well I don't think the bathroom would work as it's right on the other side of our bedroom wall and we'd here her meowing and banging up against the door. And we certainly wouldn't put more than her in there as there'd be constant chaos. We keep a dry food bowl out all the time too so there's always food. How can you ignore it though? Our one used to do it, but she'd only scratch at the door for 15 seconds or so and then give up and leave. Ichi, however is relentless and we've let her go on for about 15 minutes before getting up and either opening the door to let her in or go out and lay on the couch with her. At that point we are both wide awake and upset. I've tried ear plugs before and , as weird as this may sound, I couldn't stand them because I could hear myself breathing the entire time and it kept me up!
 
#5 ·
Ichi, however is relentless and we've let her go on for about 15 minutes before getting up and either opening the door to let her in or go out and lay on the couch with her.
I think this is the problem right here. Ichi has realized that if she keeps it up, you'll give in and do what she wants, so she has an incentive to keep up the noise.

She's not going to die from being shut out of the bedroom, so you can safely ignore her and know she'll be okay. She's probably going to fuss for a lot more than fifteen minutes about it, though, while she gets used to the idea that you're not going to cave it.

I think you just need to stick to the boundary and not let her in. You'll probably have a few very restless nights while she figures out that you aren't going to give in, but she should eventually get it once she gets into a new routine.
 
#4 ·
Have you ever tried the Sentry Calming Cat collar? It helped me when I first brought Auglaize home because she would stay up at night vocalizing at us. It's about $20 USD for a three-pack on Amazon: it's a hard rubber collar that's a bit hard to buckle, and smells strongly of lavender, but it worked well for me. After a couple days Auglaize didn't meow at night anymore. Might be worth a try!
 
#6 ·
I would put a Ssscat near the door and activate it before you close the door. It is a motion detector aerosol sprayer. It emits a blast of air when kitty goes near it. I use them on my DR table to keep cat's from chewing on my centerpiece plant. Available from Amazon.
 
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