What shall I do about this then?

[Sparklingbrook]

We have had Sparkling Cat 4 years. She is a big cuddly grey lump and the whole family love her to bits.

Her bed is on a chair in our bedroom, she comes up with us at bedtime, and up until recently would get up with us the next morning with not a peep in between.

The last month or so she has started to wake in the night, jump onto our bed and demand fusses by headbutting us and padding on our chests. DH is fed up of it. But he does give her a fuss. Then when she's had enough she goes back to her bed on the chair.

I say he is rewarding her behaviour with a fuss but he says he has to do it to get her to go back to her own bed. Plus she's very insistent.

Last night it happened 3 separate times and DH isn't happy.

She has the run of the house bar the DSs' rooms at night. What would you do?

. Here she is.

Oh how SWEET! I love shiny grey cats!
It's not helpful advice I know, but I'd just give her a bit of a pet then encourage her back onto her chair. You know shutting her out is a recipe for disaster and a scratched door
You'll soon be doing it without realising in your sleep.... training complete! (Hopefully someone more helpful will arrive soon...)

She is getting away with it because she's a sweetheart Jon.

She tries her luck with both of us, but DH is a lighter sleeper than me.

Just as an even more unhelpful aside, I recently downloaded this app that you set to record your sleep talking - it's activated by sound. When I reviewed it the next day it had recorded four separate instances of me, in my sleep, saying, "f* off Scabbers," "Scabbers geddoff," etc. I have been trained, as you will be

I have a cat that used to do this.
Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.
Don't speak, don't shout, don't stroke. Just ignore.
It's tough at first, you feel mean, and they keep doing it, you get disturbed sleep. But after a few days, (or weeks) they realise it's not going to get them anywhere.
I made the mistake at first of getting up and checking he had food and water. Or I'd give snuggles and love. He then realised this was a fab thing to do throughout the night. So I had t stop.
Shutting him out the room didn't work, he just scratched at the door til it was nearly ruined!

I love grey cats, you are very lucky to have such a cute one.

Would a heat pad work? I find that if I settle my cat with a heat pad or hot water bottle, she is less likely to disturb me during the night.

Difficult to say. I've had a bed cat since I was knee high to a donkey so that is one thing I'm well trained to. In fact any of my Siamese boys would regard being excluded from bed as a dire punishment. (Very useful that one.) So what that boils down to is that I'd let her in and under the covers however deep my sleep.

I will try a hot water bottle paper, i have one somewhere.

I think the ignoring may be the answer. it will be so hard though. like controlled crying.

She paws my face and if the covers are over it she pulls them off. She is very determined. I can't be mad at her though, I need to be firm though i think.

Agree with paper clip and hobby

Yeah, I reckon if you stroke her she'll do it every night.

I tell mine NO! and tip her off the bed if she tries to insist on cuddles when I'm too sleepy. If she's "insistent" then so am I - she very occasionally gets shouted at when she's being very naughty, and insisting on waking me up for no reason then ignoring being pushed away would eventually be grounds for a good telling off.

At the moment I'm not sure if yours actually realises that you don't like her waking you up?

Yes she is gorgeous, what a pretty cat . I think of that colour as silver.

Hot water bottle or similar sounds like an excellent plan, but it is also introducing an extra task for you at bedtime - which you may or may not be happy to go along with for a quiet night… but I'd definitely try ignoring for a few nights first to see if that has the desired effect.

Have you seen The Oatmeal cartoons about cats? Has your kitty been logging the time? (see point 5)
theoatmeal.com/comics/kitty_pet

Can you let cats cry yowl it out?

I don't think you can train the cat. Realistically (depending on willingness to learn and general obedience) it's easier to train your dh.

I suggest letting him sleep in the spare room with the cat, settling it down, and then coming back to bed. If he repeats this roughly 20 times a night for three years it will approximate what I did with dd the cat will eventually learn to sleep in it's own bed.

She definitely thinks DH is enjoying the nighttime fusses while she dribbles all over him.

Oddly in the daytime she isn't overly fussy. She follows us around and sits next to us on the sofa but not on laps at all.

That cartoon is brilliant Clobbered thanks for sharing-that really is her.

Is she a nervous cat?

I have a traumatised rescue cat, and for a long long time she would only come for a fuss when I was half asleep in bed late at night. She only felt safe enough to do so when I was lying down and comatose.

Maybe tell your DH to try and lie down on the floor (and purr ) for half an hour before bedtime and see whether she comes for a fuss then ?

I have 3 teenage sons & our 15 year old big ginger cat jumps on each of our beds to tap our faces to get a fuss in the night. We all just put our duvets over our heads & ignore him which is probably why he tries it with each of us including my DH!

She didn't have the best start. Her owner had a baby and they couldn't afford her so they passed her on to a household that already had a cat which she didn't get on with. So that family handed her into a Vets giving a false phone number.

She only trusts the four of us to fuss her. I could ask DH to fuss her when she sits next to him on the sofa in the evening.

I am a bit tempted to experiment with moving her bed on the chair into DS2's room. He sleeps like a log and wouldn't notice her probably...

You've got the choice of two approaches.

1. Shut the door

2. Remind DH that a kitty's love is an emotionally beautiful, precious thing and bark at him to stop complaining.

She's a gorgeous girl right enough.

PS - try opening the DS's doors for a night or two. She may have developed a temporary cuddling fixation on one of them and want to be near them. It's worth finding out anyway.

That picture is from when she was abandoned at the vets. I had just lost a cat unexpectedly and told the CP not to be on the lookout for her any more.
So nice CP lady sent her condolences in an email with that picture on the bottom. i said I would just go and look but it was way too soon......

You take your cat to bed with you?
Mwahahaha

Well I have since I was a kid. I think they've always come to regard it as their sleeping place with humans as permitted guests.

Always Owl.