Where do you put your cats at night?

[EmmbadTheBad]

We moved into a new house a couple of weeks ago. In our old house we were able to contain our two cats downstairs overnight - they had the open dining room/kitchen area, access to bed/food/litter. We are not able to do this in our new house due to the layout. We could shut them in the kitchen, but it is quite small and we would have to move their bed and litter in and out every evening/morning.

We had decided to let them sleep with us (which we have done with other cats in the past) but this is proving to be quite disruptive to our sleep! Even now the stress meowing from being in a new home has died down, we still find our sleep is interrupted by random meowing, nocturnal tussling (with each other!) and occasional toe biting/face smothering.

I just wondered what other people do with their cats at night? If you contain them - how big a space do they have/do you think is reasonable. And if you let them sleep with you - do you ever get an uninterrupted night's sleep?!

I should point out - they are outdoor cats (although we are not letting them out yet), but we do not let them out at night.

Thanks.

Ours just go where they want, when they want. One usually sleeps on the bed, but she isn't any bother. The other one favours the sofa. They're 4 now, but when they were younger I'd often hoof them off the bed if they were being too annoying.

Normally she has the run of the house but chooses to sleep on the landing.

We just shut our bedroom door, dcat then has run of the rest. Can you do that?

I can't sleep with her in the room as she likes to lie on my legs and I am a no touching sleeper.

Ours have the dining room/kitchen which is a reasonably large area. They are outdoor cats but are generally in by about 9, have supper & go to bed (like good little children ) & as far as I know they sleep all night.

I would hate to have cats roaming around & jumping on me in bed at night!

Ours has an open catflap so we don't know what he does
We did have to install a door at the top of the stairs so he didn't bring takeaways up to the upstairs landing but there is a bedroom just before that (where hot water tank is) so he can generally be found in there.

If you just shut bedroom doors would they scratch & yowl to get in?

Ours sleep in the utility room. Tried letting them sleep wherever but it results in chaos as the 2 younger ones want to play at 3am!
Dog sleeps where he wants.

Ours go where they like inside. We prefer to keep them in at night but it isn't always possible to find them. They have been known to spend the night on the DCs' beds.

bedroom and living room doors are shut and they have the run of the place otherwise.

Shut your bedroom door and let the cats have the rest of the house.

Says the woman who has backache and is vair tired today because she slept in an awkward position she didn't want to disturb DCat in the night.

24 hour access to cat flap and the run of downstairs (i.e. lounge, dining room and kitchen).

Lives a life of riley...

Thanks all for your replies. I had considered shutting the bedroom door. I believe they will howl outside and possibly claw at the carpet but it may be worth persevering in the hope they get used to it.

Kitchen access only for ours. They previously had the living room too but after several destroyed phone chargers, 2 destroyed Wii sensor bar cables and a destroyed network cable (which ran under the carpet and only reappeared for about 18 inches behind the TV), as well as peeing on a pile of freshly washed clothes that we forgot to take upstairs, they lost that privilege.

She has a bed in the kitchen, although she'll sleep on top of dirty clothes in the utility room if we leave the door open. She never stays out at night.

Ours gets shut in the kitchen, where her bed is, with a cat flap through to the (adjoining) garage where her litter tray, food etc is. If we let her have the run of the house she destroys carpets etc and wakes us if we are sleeping.

ours used to howl outside the door when we first started shutting them out, but we bought earplugs and ignored them and they soon stopped.

boycat yowls and scratches first thing in the morning though, but it's better than being woken up by them chasing each other across the bed all night!

We've a 4-month kitten so it is difficult to let her wander around the house at night, she would certainly chew through cables or hurt herself with other stuff. During the night she has all the hall (where litter tray, food and water are) and the upstairs landing at her disposal and she is fine because she sleeps in her bed on the landing. She never slept with us because she was never interested in it. We tried once but she jumped on my pillow attached to my face and slept there for half an hour.... then it was complete chaos from 1 am to 6 am, so we didn't repeat the experience lol

Forgot to say, ours is an indoor cat.

We have 3 indoor cats, one of which has learnt to open all the doors so we now have to wedge a chair under the handle of the kitchen door to keep them shut in! We are moving soon and had the same dilemma as the new house is open plan so I fear I will have lots of disturbed sleep and cats trying to open our bedroom door / clawing at the door! Although by then I'll be 8 months pregnant so will probably be up all night anyway with insomnia! Xx

Both of ours either sleep on their radiator beds in the dining room or on the back of the sofa. They're not allowed upstairs so sleep downstairs or occasionally they'll bugger off to hunt.

Our lovely kitties sleep wherever they choose. current favourite sleep place is our bed