# Middle of the night wakings



## sweetwater (Oct 24, 2008)

Dexter has gotten increasingly insistent and annoying about waking me up at all hours. He'll often start with the "face bump" which is cute and affectionate, but then he'll graduate onto more painful techniques...gently batting at my face, and licking/biting my cheeks. Usually he bats with no claws but last night he (gently) tapped my forehead with a single claw. I gave my customary sharp "ow!" reaction but he seemed to interpret that as a sign that I wanted to play because when I reached out to him, he pounced on my arm with all three pointy parts of the front half of his body. It was all playful, but at 2:30 in the morning I sure wasn't in the mood.

My only solution so far when he gets too disruptive is to lock him in the guest bathroom where his litterbox and automatic feeder are, but I HATE doing that to him. I try to reserve it for rare occasions when I went to sleep only a couple extra hours and he's preventing me from being able to, or if I have to get up early and he keeps waking me up. But more often than not, I get to the guest bathroom and his little cat eyes are so adorable that I can't bear closing the door. And when I do manage to leave him in there, I have to close my bedroom door so I can't hear him crying, he gets so distraught!

I understand cats are nocturnal, and I don't mind if he's up and about, but how can I get across the fact that when I'm asleep, he needs to leave me alone? Ignoring him won't work if he's using his claws or nibbling on my face.

I also want to reiterate that he is a wonderful, loving, friendly cat. None of these behaviors are being done out of malice. My guess is he's either bored and wants to play, or he's hungry (which it seems to me like he's never NOT hungry!)

My experience of keeping him awake more during the day has been that he'll fall asleep at the same time I do instead of getting a lot of energy right as I'm getting ready for bed, but then he'll wake me up at 2:30 instead of his customary 4:30. This cat naps hard! I'm not sure it'd be possible to keep him awake more during the day, but could that be the solution? Just not letting him take his 4-hour afternoon nap?


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## chloecatgirl (Mar 30, 2009)

Ugh, I have the same problem with Dante. Bedtime for us = playtime...and usually his most aggresive play time. I have yet to come up with a solution either other than keep him out of the room. Every night though I'm hoping that he'll be a good kitty and sleep with us. But as soon as I'm getting ready for bed he'll run into our room and jump on the bed with his eyes as huge as saucers and his tail lashing and he's in pounce mode. Once we're in bed he'll pounce on the feet, dig under the side of the covers to find flesh, bite the hands and arms and get all entangled in the hair. He's even bopped me in the eye a few times. But on the rare nights when he does let us fall asleep...in the early mornings he starts it up...ugh. He's only 7 months and not an overly cuddly cat to begin with so I'm not expecting him to sleep between us every night all night. I just want him to know that that's our sleep time.


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## Bethany (Jul 19, 2006)

Honestly? I shut mine out of the bedroom. I sleep with earplugs, so if they cry I don't hear it, and they always greet me happily in the morning.

I do feel guilty as I watch the door close on Stormy's big yellow eyes, but they get to sleep all day and I don't.  So my sleep quality takes precedence... and my sleep quality definitely improves when I sleep catless.

Last night since I was getting up early I decided to let them stay (I get up earlier some days than others, and of course they always want to wake me at the earliest of my usual wake times.) So, they woke me up an hour and a half before I meant to get up, and I couldn't go back to sleep. That will teach me...


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## sweetwater (Oct 24, 2008)

I was hoping I could keep him with me  Locking him out of the room might not be the best solution either, because he doesn't just meow plaintively, he tries to poke his paws under the door, making it bang over and over again! Sounds like my options are the guest bathroom (it's so tiny!) or just put up with it. Has anyone successfully found a way to teach their cat that nighttime is not playtime?


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## tanyuh (Jun 7, 2003)

Hey Sweetwater,

Please pardon me if it seems like I'm intruding (I was an active member of this forum many years ago, and due to a recent addition I felt like joining the community again), but I have a similar problem with my ~six year old male. The thing I've found to be most helpful is to try and keep him awake during the 4-5 hours before bed. That way he's also tired when we are. I've found, too, that once we go to bed, he feels like playing for a while. Thus we hangout in the bedroom for half an hour to an hour and watch teevee shows on dvd on my laptop before bed. Then we can all wind down at the same time. I love to sleep with my cat as well, so the extra effort is worth it to me. He sleeps thru the night usually and only seems to wake me up if I forget to feed him before bed, hehe. Good luck!


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

A good play session with Da Bird or a laser pointer and a snack before bed will put him out for several hours. Then when he wakes you, ignore him, roll over, bury your face in the pillow, pull the covers over your head, do not move, do not talk, completely ignore him. It may take a week or two of this, but he'll get the message. Any response from you, whether positive or negative is a response and he's learned that he can get a reaction by bothering you. 

Also, don't feed him as soon as you get up in the morning. Cats will typically wake up about an hour before normal feeding time and become active...in the wild they hunt, in captivity they bother their human. So if you get up at 7 and feed him immediately, he will wake at 6 and start bothering you. If you then start getting up at 6 and giving him some food and going back to bed, eventually he'll start getting up at 5 etc. If you wait to 8 to feed him, he'll stir at the same time you do.

Oh...and clip his nails so when he bats at you he won't be hurting you.


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## chloecatgirl (Mar 30, 2009)

Thanks for the advice...although this wasn't my original post heh.


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## sweetwater (Oct 24, 2008)

Yes, I appreciate the advice too. I kept Dexter up from about 7:30 on til my bedtime, and I vaguely recall him waking me around 2:30 in the morning (about two and a half hours after I went to sleep) but he must not have been too bad because I really don't remember  I will work on keeping him awake longer and tiring him out more before bed. I'll admit I was a bit lazy with the laser pointer!


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Make sure to give him a snack before bed too. Cats go through the following cycle: wake, hunt, eat, groom, sleep. The play session is the equivalent of the hunt, reward his efforts with a tasty snack and he'll finish, groom and then go to sleep.


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## Auntie Crazy (Dec 10, 2006)

In addition to all the great advice already posted, growling and/or spitting at Dexter (cool name, by the way) when he wakes you might work. It's the feline equivalent of saying, "back off!" and it worked to train my Spencer to wait for the alarm clock before laying on my face for his good-morning love-fest. :roll: 

Also, finding a specific trigger the cats can associate with breakfast every morning might help, too. I always feed my five after I shower. It means I have an audience while I'm drying off, but I get to sleep as late as I like. :lol: 

Good luck! Let us know how it goes. 

A.C.


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## sweetwater (Oct 24, 2008)

The situation has gotten drastically worse. Dexter has been better about not waking me up directly but he's developed this horrible new habit of clawing at the underside of my bed (which damaged the box spring and voided the warranty) and the noise wakes me up. There's no way to discipline him because I can't reach him to spray bottle or anything. I've tried locking him out of my room but he's absolutely horrible if he doesn't have access to me! Meowing like crazy and banging at the door until I let him back in. He's also learned that I never feed him in the middle of the night anymore, and the only reason I'll lure him to the guest bathroom is to lock him in there if he keeps waking me up. I have no idea what to do, help!

Edit: Also, the fact that's he's scratching the bottom of the bed is a major problem, I'll be renting a house this summer and the bed I'll be sleeping on won't be mine. I can't afford to reimburse someone for a bed that my cat destroys!


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

When we lived in California our cats (_kittens_) played under the bed and ripped the liner, allowing them access into the box-spring matresses. (_we have a CA King w/ 2 extra-long box springs_) We'd finally had it :evil: and on the weekend we used an old sheet, chicken wire and a staple gun and "fixed" it. No problems since then.

Hindsight being 20/20, I think I would have preferred to use hardware cloth (_smaller holes and a stiffer wire mesh_) instead of the chicken wire, but it has held up VERY well over the years. Now the outer edges of my boxsprings are showing wear, from kittens/cats scratching on them. I've sewn a 'patch' over two corners and those are beginning to show wear, too. My next solution will be to purchase two extra-long-single fitted sheets, which I can put over the matress right-side-up.... But the best way for *you* to use this tip would be to put the fitted sheet on the boxspring _up-side-down_ to help protect it!

Another thing I've learned to do, fostering kittens whom I don't want hiding inaccessible to me under the bed, is to block off access by using shallow plastic storage bins shoved under the bed all around the edges, pressed right up against each other so there are no gaps for them to get through.

Best of luck!
Heidi


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## petspy (Sep 11, 2008)

perhaps get rid of the bed frame altogether,
and simply use the mattress and box-spring
right off the floor of your bedroom.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

petspy said:


> perhaps get rid of the bed frame altogether,
> and simply use the mattress and box-spring
> right off the floor of your bedroom.


Yes, this could certainly be helpful for some people...but I know my husband would have great difficulty in getting up/down with a bed that low. In addition, most bedroom furniture sets don't allow for the matresses to be so low between the head/foot-boards, the rails/bed-frame are used to connect the head/foot-boards and they hold the matresses 'up' to the height they need to be for the bed to look proportioned correctly. One way around that...would be to have a wooden frame built, with support through the center and drawers at the two sides and possibly the foot, too. Or have cubby-holes installed at the foot for storing shoes/slippers. The head/foot-boards could be screwed/bolted directly to the under-bed storage unti. I think beds like that are called "_captain's beds_"?


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## sweetwater (Oct 24, 2008)

If he's not clawing at the underneath of the bed, he's clawing at the sides of it. I think putting the mattress directly on the floor would only relocate the problem to a more noticeable part of the bed.

I moved his scratching post directly next to the bed, and I put his catnip-filled scratching board underneath it. One of his favorite toys had also been sitting in my car awhile (I was being kind of lazy, but it also ensures he won't tire of it too quickly) so I brought that in also and put in the guest bathroom where the noise won't bother me as much.

Last night I pretty much just locked him out of the bedroom, but I didn't leave him in the bathroom so I felt less guilty about it. I wedged a pair of socks under the door so that when he pushed his paws under the doorframe, it wouldn't bang back and forth and make tons of noise. He cried for awhile, but eventually he calmed down and left me alone.

This isn't an ideal solution though. I really enjoy having him keep me company, and it makes me sad that I might not be able to if I can't fix any of these problems. Does anyone know of any sort of "don't-scratch-here" sprays or something that could deter him?


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

sweetwater said:


> This isn't an ideal solution though. I really enjoy having him keep me company, and it makes me sad that I might not be able to if I can't fix any of these problems.


I know, but it is *very important* that we get our rest. Maybe after he matures a bit he would learn to be able to sleep with you at night. I've had problems with the door-rattling and what I would do is swing a sock into the doorjamb as I'm closing it and just having that sock pressed in there was enough to keep the door from rattling. I was unable to use socks stuffed at the bottom because the door/carpet gap is too large. In addition, they learned how to push their feet underneath and claw at the carpet, so I had my husband make a door length 'wedge' that I slide under there and now they can no longer reach under the door to snag the carpet.

The best thing to save your furniture is to discourage him from using it and providing places he *can* scratch. I would buy some wide, double-sided sticky-tape and stick strips, close together on a covering fitted sheet at the places he likes to scratch. Most cats *cannot stand* the feel of their paws (pads/fur) sticking to something and he should quickly learn for himself that is NOT an area that feels good when he does that and he will deter himself, whether you are home/awake or not.

I have to be judicious about which cats I allow to sleep in the bedroom with me. It seems the older cats do very well, sleeping the whole night and with very little activity other than maybe a drink, quick snack from a small handful of dry food and a trip to the small pottybox I keep in there. The younger cats that get active and want to play, or wrestle together, quickly get booted out and not invited back in. I also have a few cats who "don't care for" some of the other cats and I have to sort of 'rotate' between the pairs experiencing discontent with each other. I also have one sweet, _sweet_, kitty...but she likes to sleep near my head _and she snores_. 0_o


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## JennyM (Jun 5, 2009)

When I first got my Daisy Mae, she'd be up and about at night, and underneath the bed sleeping at the crack of dawn. 

Now that she is used to her new home, instead of crawling under the bed to sleep, she's become my personal alarm clock at 5:00 every morning (at least its not 2:30). I usually like to sleep until 6:30.

She'll lay on the bed and take short cat naps throughout the night. But when 5:00 rolls around, she wakes me up by walking around my head, making whining noises, or "digging" and pawing around in my comforter. She acts like she is trying to dig a hole in the mattress. At first I though she was just hungry because her food dish is usually empty by morning. I normally don't shut her out of the bedroom, but occasionally I have kicked her out in the morning. She usually meows at the door for a while, but then it gets quiet. Of course, when I do open the door, there she is waiting! I think she's just saying, "It's morning, and its time to get up!"

Last night my boyfriend slept over, and instead of her usual routine she went under the bed to sleep! Unfortunately, my bf woke me up at 5 anyway.

Jenny


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## Ka-Ka-Ka-Kitty Face (Jun 16, 2009)

I have issues like that with my cat too. I have to lock the bedroom door. sometimes he still wakes me up meowing incessantly and pushing his head/batting his paws against the door. I just ignore it, or yell "SAM! NO!" and he stops. But he may start again 30 min later. 

On the days I do leave my door open, for A/C reasons, he is forever trying to wake me up. Sometimes he pounces on my chest. He scared the CRAP out of my bf and I one morning at 5am, just pounced on us! Immediately he pounced off and ran out of the room. Probably frightened by my yelp. Or I'll wake up because I hear something falling off of my dresser. UGH! Mischievous kitty!

Should I do the water spray thing? Will that teach him to leave me alone as I sleep? Unless there is a serious problem.


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