If I'm confining my new kittens to just one room....

[stubbornstains]

Should it be the bedroom or the kitchen?

Kitchen pros: wipe clean floor, kittens won't wake me up at night, next to the downstairs bathroom where their litter tray will eventually live. Kitchen con: much higher incidence of Child Incursion.

Bedroom pros: much quieter, away from the action, Child Incursion risk much lower (usually just half an hour of intense body slamming in the morning; I could even drag myself out of bed early and not let the kids in at all for a couple of days). Bedroom cons: new cream carpet (!!!), further for the litter tray to "travel"until it reaches its final resting place, risk of disturbed sleep due to tiny furry things leaping on head at 3 am).

Our new kittens are about 14 weeks old, and have grown up in a busy, chaotic (although loving) household, where they seem pretty confident...Maybe I won't need to confine them to one room at all? If I pick them up on Monday evening the house will be child free for about 24 hours, also.

What do you think??

The DC are 6 and 16 months, BTW. DC2 can be corralled away from the kitchen most of the time, although this does tend to greatly enrage him .

Kitchen for def.

I was kind of hoping someone would say that .

Congratulations on your kittens! On the subject of litter trays, for 2 cats you really should have at least 2 litter trays (official advice is 3) in different rooms. You might not have a problem with them sharing but if they start to get territorial over the tray then you could end up with one cat toileting on your carpet or furniture if you only have one tray location. I think kitchen will be fine but they will likely be into everything so you have to make sure that there isn't anything they can wreak too much havoc with. If you have a gas hob make 100% sure they wouldn't be able to turn the gas on by batting at the knobs whilst playing for example. Be careful of things they might pull down on themselves.

Pictures of kittens or this thread doesn't count!

I'd go kitchen too. Floor easier to wash and they won't disturb your sleep too much.

Ah see, that's the plus side of having a 16 month in the house already fuzzy- the kitchen is pretty solidly havoc proofed . (This assuming that they won't be able to jump onto the worktops at the age of 14 weeks. Eek). Oh dear, I just bought the one litter tray today. Hopefully that'll be fine until I'm next passing a litter tray shop. There will totally be photos! (should be picking them up tomorrow evening).

(DS1 and I have been making them a handcrafted kitten bed out of a cardboard box with a hole cut in, and I will line it with a baby duvet.)

I think while they are so little one tray will be fine for the time being but as they start to get older they can get less keen on sharing. I wouldn't bank on the worktops being unreachable. Kittens have a way of getting themselves up onto places that really should be too high for them. One of ours when about that age could get on top of the top cupboards in the kitchen. We had no idea how she was doing it as you never saw her jump, you'd just go into the kitchen and there she'd be up at ceiling height.

Your homemade bed sounds lovely too.

(gibber) My God, then there is no end to what they could get up to potentially, even in my kitchen, is there? Must get a grip....I have successfully raised 2 litters of kittens in the distant past, without mishap. I feel like I've forgotten more than I ever knew!

How long do you reckon I could leave them for, at the beginning? I'm working on Tuesday, but am self employed, so could pop back every 2-3 hours....

We picked Bogbastard up at 14 weeks and as per advice shut him in the front room with a stair gate across. Expected him to be terrified and cower under things.

24 hours later he had conducted several determined ram raids on the stair gate before working out how to leap over it, and taking possession of the rest of the house

So Id go for the kitchen, but you may not need it for too long!

I feel I might be overthinking things a bit much at this point....ex Cat took multiple house moves in her stride (although took an extremely dim view of sailing, when we lived on a boat). Nary a cower in sight.

So, they're here . They had a good explore of the kitchen andgot a bit vocal, which miraculously stopped when I gave them some tea. I keep on hovering, in the expectation that they might need some comfort and reassurance, but they've mostly been spark out in their bespoke upcycled kitten cave. I think it's fair to say that this has been a hit .

It's obvious that the tabby's going to be Trouble . The tortoiseshell's much quieter and shyer, so far.

They are gorgeous!!