Cat question - she won't stop! Help?

Spoony has been going through that too. She’s pushing up on the same age, and has no playmate. They are primarily nocturnal animals; so it’s nature working in them. We tell her no. It’s taken time for the word to sink in, months. But now we can put off the “i need attention” till 5 AM at least.

@ETPro: Ya, they always used to have “Kitty Olympics” at like 3:30am when they were babies… they would run around the house and wake everyone up. But that hasn’t happened in quite a while (my apartment is too small for them to run around, unfortunately). I don’t want her to get discouraged though… I just wish there was something I could do. :/

If you have a door to your bedroom, you could try shutting it, or maybe put her in another room, with a litter box and bed, of course. If Kitty keeps clawing at your door (and earplugs don’t help), I’ve heard that pointing a fan at the bottom of the door, from the inside, discourages most cats from going near enough to scratch at them. I haven’t tried that myself, but I know people who swear by it. Then again, I’m not sure having a fan on in your room in winter is a good idea, even if it’s pointing at the door!

Our cats sometimes get rowdy at night, but luckily we can close the door and let them run around all they want in the living-room! They always settle down eventually, but who wants to wait through that at 3am?

@Anemone: I live in the tiniest studio in the world. No such thing as a bedroom door! The scratching doesn’t bother me, it’s just a kinda odd behavior. And yeah, I started a new (temp) job on Tuesday and she had me up for almost an hour earlier that morning – I was MISERABLE all day. Yuck! Thanks for your advice though :)

We have to keep our kitty in the kitchen at nights because she will wake us all up at 4 in the morning wanting to play. I feel bad for locking her in the kitchen (she has access to her food and litter box by the way) but I need to sleep. She sometimes sleeps on my bed but will always wake one of us up early in the morning.

I agree with ETpro, they are nocturnal animals so they will be up and ready to go

My cat was keeping me from sleeping a few months back. Wanting to snuggle and play in the middle of the night, sitting on my head, meowing….so we just started keeping a spray bottle by the bed. Whenever he got pesky we sprayed him. He stopped in less than a week. I think the spray method is almost always effective with cats.

Another option is to wear her out before bedtime!

Have a good play session before bed. The bet way to stop the behavior is to ignore it. It might take awhile, but she’ll get the idea that meowing is not getting her what she wants and then she’ll stop. Since this behavior is just starting she should redirect quickly.

All of my cats entertain themselves at night or they sleep. I never have problems with them waking me up.

@deni: WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT!!!! THANK YOU!! We trained both of them with spray bottles and anytime I pick anything up to spray (from Pam to Febreeze) she runs. I’ll often show her the bottle and tell her it’s okay and point away from her to spray… doesn’t work, she’s too scared. BRILLIANT AND I LOVE YOUUUUUU thanks!!!

Just be sure she’s not in some kind of pain or distress.

Be careful when you spray your cat. Spray in a way that your cat doesn’t realize that you are doing the praying. If your cat determines that the spray is coming from you then it will conclude that you are not a nice person to be around.

If your cat is not fixed then your cats hyper activity may be due to the effects of raging hormones when it is time to breed.

@Jeruba: if she wasn’t running around like a silly girl, I’d be worried… this isn’t out of the norm, just the timing is. Thank you1
@gondwanalon: She’s fixed and I won’t even have to spray her, she’ll see the bottle and get it. :) thanks!

@Samantha_Rae – Given that she’s an older cat, the reason she’s yelling at night might be because she’s deaf. I can’t be sure how likely this is, because you say she’s acting like she wants to play, but it might be the case.

Our family cat started doing this when she was about 15 or so (she lived to 21!!), especially when I had friends stay over. She’d start around 5am, yelling at my hungover friends and I… suffice it to say that I didn’t have a ton of sleepovers after this started.

We were never able to get her to stop – I don’t want to be the one to bring you down; I hope the spray bottle works, and it might – our cat didn’t have the same association because we got her at a year old and she never had to be trained.

Good luck!

Our cat gets lonely, talkative, and playful between 2 and 6 AM. In the year and a half we’ve had her, she still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that the bringers of noms have a different schedule than her.

Of course, it is worse when they can’t see where they are. Cats can see in dim light, but not in total darkness, which has a tendency to freak them out. If her night vision is going then it is possible that the little fuzzball is lost. We had an older cat (mid-teens) that started that. We got a couple of extra night lights to give her just enough light to wander around the house and she quieted right down.

@deni Wearing a cat out isn’t easy, especially if they are less than 10 years old. Like toddlers, they have big batteries and recharge quickly.

@jerv lol, well my cat is 8 and i play with him for 10 minutes with a piece of string or a paperclip (the only things he’ll play with) and he’s out like a light for the next 2 days. he’s so easy. i’m spoiled.

@Samantha_Rae you’re welcome!!!!! i know how annoying that is!

@Seelix: thanks but she’s not going deaf, that cat can hear me coming home from down the hall :)

And yes, the spray bottle seems to have worked last night… we shall see what happens.
Thanks everyone!

@deni When it comes to the spray method, it worked for the first couple of days with my cat, then she realized it was just water now she tries to drink from the bottle when I go to spray her. I was having a problem with my cat getting in the Christmas tree, she finally won this battle and I took all the ornaments off the tree two weeks ago, she doesn’t mess with it much anymore. I hope the spray bottle works for you though.

@JustJessica: so when we were training the cats, we were instructed to put water + vinegar in the bottle. Maybe try that.

My Spoony trusts me implicitly. We are as close as two beings of such divergent species can get. I would never betray her trust in me by spraying her. It may take much longer to teach her that noice at 3 AM is not welcome and won’t have a positive effect by just ignoring it, but I believe the difference in relationship that

Izzy is finally figuring out that when the big people are flat and the room is dark, she gets nothing. If I can get my wife to stop responding to the meows entirely, the teaching process will go quicker.

@Samantha_Rae Great idea! Thank you!