Namechanger here and have hard hat ready.
Any solutions to this greatly appreciated.
V brief backstory, cat is 16 or so (we adopted him as a stray). I have two DC, 3 and 13 months, the 13 month old still gets up quite a lot at night to BF and 3 year old prone to nightmares at moment. Husband moved out a few weeks ago - won't go into details, but it was sudden and traumatic for everyone - so just me on own with DC. For various reasons husband is having them for a few hours at weekend when he can, but mainly down to me. I have been quite ill over past few weeks and also been going through redundancy process.
So... the bloody cat keeps waking us all up at night. He comes in and yowls and yowls. Have small house and because of layout only place to shut him in is dining room...where he yowls and scratches so it wakes me and often DS up. DS then takes anywhere up to 30mins to resettle. Have tried shutting stairgate at bottom of stairs, cat scratches/bangs/yowls all night, wakes up me/DS/DD/all of us.
Can't shut cat outside as he yowls and wakes up neighbours.
Basically if one of the 2 DC haven't got me up several times a night, then it's the cat and I have had enough.
Other bloody anooying things which have pissed me off for ages:
Cat runs mud all round the house, sits on clean washing/beds/windowsils/clean sofas etc and gets footprints and lumps of mud everywhere - this is all the sodding time. Can't have litter tray and keep him inside as only suitable room dining room and too grim as where we eat, plus risk of DS eating litter/cat shit etc..
Am constantly moving cat biscuits up our of DS' reach as he eats them, then cat will yowl at me until I put them back down, then DS gets them again, etc etc..
The cat can't get over stairgate anymore so yowls at me to open/shut it for him multiple times a day which then cues tantrum from DS who loves opening and shutting stairgate/going up and down stairs for hours at a time and would do this all day if he could.
He is regularly puking or shitting on the floor which is not fun to clean up and I also worry that DD/DS will find or step in the sick/shit first (and in DS' case probably eat it).
Cat needs about £600 of dental work doing, can't afford it, feel awful. He's also going a bit senile and will yowl for food even if it is right in front of him til you shake his bowl then he realises it is there.
He's really more husband's cat than mine, but H can't take him as living with relatives temporarily. I feel guilty that he obviously needs attention but I genuinly feel I have nothing left to give. I'm surviving on very, very little sleep as it is and I work too.
The only thing stopping me trying to get him rehomed is I think it could be further upsetting for DD (3) with yet another change, but seriously, I could kill the fecking cat when he's woken me up again...especially when by some miracle both DC are asleep at the same time.
Ah... apologies this was very long. Poor sodding cat.