Darn CAT waking me up in the middle of the night - ideas?

[babystuffbuff]

My kitty is three, and I love him dearly. But in the last few weeks he has developed a horrible habit. Every night, between 3:30 and 4:00 AM, without fail, he sits outside our bedroom door and cries. If I ignore him, he keeps going and I can't sleep (this doesn't wake DH, just me). If I get out of bed and chase him away from the door, he will go into the other room for a few minutes and then come right back and cry again. This will happen four or five times in a row, and as a result I am losing 45 minutes to an hour of sleep in the middle of the night getting into and out of bed, yelling at the cat!

Has anyone else had this problem with a pet? We can't let him in our room, because he and our two other cats will chase each other around, jump on the bed, etc. I have thought about getting a spray bottle of water to spray him with but I'm not sure if that will teach him to leave us alone. I love my furballs, but this is getting really old, not to mention exhausting!

Sarah

"Are these your friends? Where are their clothes?"

[buddyleebaby]

My cat did that too, for awhile.
I think he was suffering from older "sibling" syndrome, so to speak.
I find that if I cuddle him for awhile right before I go to bed, he will let me sleep through the night. He (and the other cats) do make a beeline for the bedroom as soon as I open the door in the morning.
They just like being with me and dd.
Hope he knocks it off and lets you get some sleep soon.

[mudder17]

Sorry--we've definitely been there, but our solution was to just let the cats sleep with us and for the most part, they don't chase each other around while we're sleeping. With DH's parents' cats, they did always keep them out of the room but instead of just closing their own bedroom door, they kept the cats in a separate room with access to their litter box. Does that help?


Eileen

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[Saartje]

One of my cats tried this a few years back. My solution was to utterly and consistently ignore him. No opening the door; that counts as getting attention, so he'll keep doing it -- not just that night, but on future nights. In my cat's case, it really only took one night of ignoring him. (My husband was the one doing the getting up when the cat demanded it; he went on a business trip, and the cat never bothered me after the first night.)

[JElaineB]

No advice, but I can commisserate (sp?) I let our cat sleep with us but she still keeps me up all night pawing at my head or purring or sitting on me. I keep shoving her off me but it doesn't really help. Last night was really bad for some reason and I had a crappy night's sleep because of the cat. Yes, she was my first baby, but I want her to just let me sleep!

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[caheinz]

I agree. Ignore it for a night, and he'll go away. Shouldn't take more than 2 nights.

One of our cats figured out that he could get us up by waking DS up in the middle of the night. Soon as we figured out what was waking DS up, we shut the cat out. Problem solved.

Another solution: get a loud HEPA filter or humidifier for your bedroom. It'll dampen the noise considerably!