Do you let cats in children’s room overnight?

[wishIwasonholiday10]

Do you let your cats in your children’s room overnight and if you do from what age (of the child, not the cat). Our cat has had free rein of the house at night but has never shown any interest in getting in DDs cot. DD is now in a bed and not sure if we should lock the cat up downstairs overnight so he doesn’t wake her. He does come in our room and often wakes us.

Our cat tries to get under the cover and paws us if she can't find a way in so she stays downstairs. She sleeps in my boy's room during the day so I'm sure she would try at night too.

Cat sleeps with one dc, they go up to bed together.

My DD is nearly 9 & our cat is 14. Our cat (& dog) have slept wherever they want since my DD was born. They’re all asleep now on my DD’s bed, she loves it & so do they!

Yes, always from when they were baby upwards but she's not really a cat that snuggles up with people or wants to be on beds.

didn't allow when they were little but cat wasn't interested in it either.

no, more so because she’s unpredictable so can be snuggling one second and will bite or scrab the next, so she’s always slept in the sitting room at night (dog is in the kitchen)

Our cat is barred from one DC's room (allergies) but goes in the other rooms if she wants. However, she tends to sleep downstairs in warm weather.

DDog always sleeps with one of the DC, but DDog is small and the DC is a teen.

Dog and our older cats sleep downstairs and our younger cats upstairs usually on my sons top bunk - he sleeps downstairs and sometimes our little kitty sleeps with my 15 year old occasionally they’ll sleep in their beds in the hall but they are older (kids)

We always shut bedroom doors at night for fire safety so no pets in bedrooms.

Our cats sleep on the children’s beds and occasionally on ours too. I think it’s lovely.

No, I don’t. I’m quite strict about bedroom doors being closed (anxiety about house fires!) The cat wouldn’t want to be confined all night so she has free rein downstairs.

I don't have kids but had a cat growing up from age 9. I just loved it when he slept on my bed at night. It was never an issue except that one time I accidentally shut him in and he weed himself on my bean bag (I think it felt the closest to his litter tray, poor boy).

Sadly both my cats passed away but they were never allowed free reign when DD9 was in her cot, I think she was about 3 or 5 by the time I stopped closing the bedroom door so they couldn't get in. I think the child needs to have enough strength to move the cat out of the way to avoid suffocation risks.

I know some people don't agree they can be a risk but baby's have been suffocated to death due to a cat sitting on them!

Old cat had a long life without DC in it, so wasn't a fan of ds at all and wouldn't go near his room (unless DS was out)
Current cat we got when DS was 4.5 , once when he was a kitten we thought he'd escaped but he was in the pile of cuddly toys on the end of DS' bed , he'd climbed in and gone to sleep. Cat takes his pick which bed he sleeps on, it's usually behind my knees, or in warmer weather in his actual cat bed (this is a new behaviour) but a few times a month he'll go in with ds, DS is delighted when he wakes up in the morning and the cat is asleep by his feet

evidence?

Just our cat that likes to spread blood and guts and mice heads around the house at night, then? For this reason it’s shoo’d downstairs off DD’s bed and locked in the room where the cat flap is overnight.

I did as the cats we had when kids were babies did not wake us up early. I did tend to shut the kids doors when they went to sleep but that was due to noise not because of the cats.

Is there any evidence of cats causing suffocation?

Either way, everyone has different rules for pets, it's whatever works for you.

Just doesn't sound likely, given how many cats (and dogs) have free access. Yet it never makes the headlines, unlike fatal dog attacks (from aggression, not sleeping).

I always let DCat have access to bedrooms.
She really, really loved one particular DC - adopted her as her own almost - and would curl up at the bottom of her bed at night. Brought her dead mice too, which she left on the floor by the bed.

Babies always coslept at night, but DCat sometimes slept in the crib with a baby during naprime. There was never an issue.

I think that the cat suffocating a child is a bit of an urban myth. I asked our Maternal Child Health nurse this question 20 years ago (in Australia) and she laughed and said she had never actually heard of a case and not to worry. So our cats and dogs have always slept wherever they have chosen and the cats have never chosen to sleep with our children when young. Now the kids (young adults) love to have the animals sleep with them and will never be without animals when they leave home.

6 cats 4 children, cats go wherever they want to and I can tell you for a fact the kids beds are the last place they will go to sleep on because there always on my damn bed lol. But ye cats always had free rein in and out. My dog is a service dog but i still shut her in the kitchen at night where she has her cosy bed as she did have a habit of looking for the most fluffy warm bed once

Always have, after they were very tiny anyway, unless the cat would wake them up. I found the cats didn't want to be in their rooms when they were sleeping as babies and toddlers so much, though they liked joining in, in the day time! One cat would come and sleep on the Barbie bed as a kitten, and the other is almost exactly the same age as DD2, and would play on the baby gym with her, it was quite adorable.

No I don't see any reason why a cat should be creeping around a child's room at night potentially waking up and distracting the child. Cat can and will find somewhere else to sleep.

Yep. Youngest wont sleep with his door shut so can’t stop it. He has a cat bed in his windowsill and the cars tend hit not to wake him. They wake me if they’re bored but seem considerate of the kids.

My cats break the doors down if we close them out of the bedrooms 😂