Advice on kittens in sofa?

[whywhywhydelilah]

Hi I would be really grateful if anyone had some advice on this. A cat I am looking after had kittens a few days ago and this mourning when I got up today she had moved them all from the card board box she had them in to inside the sofa.

She can get into it from underneath the cushions and all the way around at the bottom so it is impossible to stop if she is in the same room as it. I got them out of the sofa but she immediately started to try and put them back in.

I am reluctant to interfere because I am worried that I could make her reject them and not feed them and they are less than four days old. But I cant let her keep them in the sofa, I think its dangerous. Its old goodness knows what it is like inside or whats in there and it might get jumped on or sat on by accident even if I tell people to stay away.

But what should I do? just keep physically restraining her when she tries? She gets really upset and the kitten in her mouth starts to meow or just let her move them in case she stops feeding them?

TIA

You could try rubbing some orange peel on the inside. Cats hate the smell of orange. might put her off?

Ok thanks I will try that see. She is still trying to to do it now...

That must be a pain but tbh I would leave her. If you move them she will just keep putting them back and getting stressed. Make sure people don't go near her. It won't be long before the kittens start crawling then you could move them.

Yeah thanks dolphin I think I will just let her get on with it and put a big sign on the sofa or something. She is quite young and I am really worried about her rejecting them so maybe it is better to just let her do what she wants, maybe it is actually rather comfy in there! I'm felling quite guilty really because I tried to make the box nice and put it in a safe dark quiet place but the house is small and quite noisy so no wonder she wants to find somewhere that feels safer. I think the only reason she didn't actually have them in the sofa in the first place is because she couldn't fit at the end of her pregnancy because she was too big!