How to stop being woken...

[Parmaviolets13]

This morning I got woke up by my cat at 4.10am - not specifically at me but he was awake, around and miaowing.

The night before he woke me up by biting me at 4.40am.

He has dry food and water available as I make sure there's some when I go to bed.

The flat I live in can be quite light so maybe he thinks it's just the middle of the day but I'm sooo tired!

Any ideas?

I have the same problem and still haven't found a solution except to shut the cat out of the bedroom when she wakes me up the first time.

Without fail I'm woken up between 4 - 4.30am every morning. Poppy would jump on the dressing table and play with the leaves on the pot plant until I wake up - so I removed the plant from the bedroom. She now plays with the metal top on the lava lamp until I wake up - she knows exactly what she’s doing!

I love her to bits but I’m not enjoying my broken sleep. This has been going on for a few weeks now. I’m hoping when the mornings start to get darker she’ll sleep in longer!

Yup, this is what they do, they don't need anything except to know you're awake to play or cuddle them. Could you put up blackout curtains or blinds, shut the bedroom door, make sure he has toys to play with. You'll get used to it eventually

southerngirl it's all your fault for leaving tempting cat toys all over the place. What is it about cats and lava lamps?

It's a really light time of year, they can be absolute devils.

No suggestions really aside from blackout curtains or shutting him outside the bedroom

My cats (and dog) are shut in the kitchen downstairs at night. I will not have my precious sleep interrupted!

If anyone finds a solution I would like to know. Our young lad is an early riser. One way to placate him for a while is to lift the blinds a little so he can watch the birds in the hedge below.
I'm used to more mature moggies who sleep later...

Be thankful you haven't got two! My two boys think very early mornings are a great time to play chase up and down the landing and stairs. They are both fairly hefty cats - over 5kgs - so it's enough to wake the dead - well it must be as it wakes up my DH!

Haha thank you for the replies! I live in a flat and I can see how light it is come 4/5am regardless of blinds, so it's not his fault! At least it's normal 😂 I'd rather he knocked things than bit though, he's an aggressive bugger but he's still a baby. He's only just turned 1.

Can't shut the door as he hates it and scratches/miaows. He manages to push the door open when I'm on the loo! I really have been a bit of a pushover

Ours is locked in the utility everynight with all the necessaries. We tried him upstairs a few months ago as he’s 9yo but 4.30am is still one up all up time.

The highlight was when he pounced at full pelt under the quilt hunting our hands. Then acted all surprised when we screamed. 14lb of Bengal focused into 8 sharp claws really hurts.

Yep my 5 month old kitten is up at about 4:30 am also, it's like having a baby again. I love my sleep and i now dread going to bed.

Has he been castrated?.

Try having to fat fluffy Persians stuck on either side of your head on a very hot and sticky night!

i feel bad for the poor wee animals getting locked in a room overnight. most cats are up and active at night, they should be free to roam.

maybe you could get a sleep mask & ear plugs? might help a bit. my cat enjoys playing with bouncy balls and bells, so ive had to confiscate them at all hours

@Southerngirl77 That’s so funny and cute! Although not for you and your sleep...

Mine are waking me early too, but not that early thank god! I was thinking of trying an automatic feeder as they usually settle down again after breakfast.

I tried shutting my cats out of the bedroom and they just made more noise lol I've since worked out how to shut them up.

Dcat1 - give her dinner right before bedtime and make it the large meal of the day, so she gets a full pouch of wet food before bed but only half in the morning. She wakes me up because she's hungry and will only eat dry food under protest if she's starving but if i feed her right before bed she'll be quiet. If I don't feed her before bed she'll wake me up at 4am, but with bedtime dinner she'll let me sleep all morning on a weekend!

Dcat 2 - needs to be given enough room to lie beside you in bed and be cuddled. If he doesn't get cuddles he'll be noisey until he gets cuddles because he's a needy little s* hahaha

I think OP you just need to try a few things and work out what works for your cats.

Every day at 4am mine claws me gently around the face until I roll over and make a space for her under the duvet

Our elderly cat gets my husband up at every opportunity during the night... for fresh water!
Even though he will leave a nice big bowl for him.
If he can’t find DH, he will bellow all the night long...

The Bunz also appreciates a 4am snack. I can usually pawn him off on my husband who will have been snoring the house down. I like the suggestion of feeding him a big meal right before bedtime!

crepuscular devils

I saw a programme on tv which was a cool biker guy who was a cat whisperer. There was a show about this problem. He advised the owners to exercise the cats in the evening to make them tired (eg flirt pole, boxes to play in, remote control mouse etc, whatever gets your cat moving and thinking. Then have a timed feeder with their usual wet breakfast food in, set for half an hour before they usually wake you up.
The people on the show had great results with this. Cats are nocturnal so you have to think around this. Worth a try, i think.

I have not found an answer to this except shutting puss in our kitchen diner (which flows into a big utility so she has a fair bit of space). I just don't function well if woken at 4am every morning.

Oh yes, Sev gets up earlier and earlier; 4:15 at the moment the same time the birds start discussing worms and wing spans.

He scratches the bedroom door and howls until I give in and get up. He usually wants food and a belly rub. Then we both go to sleep again - me to get up again at 6 and he to get up at about 11.

My little bugger’s latest trick is to plonk his sizeable rump on our Sonos speaker at the end of the bed. Not only can he turn it on, he can even increase the volume. Yesterday we were woken up by the Charlatans full blast at 5.30am.

DP is to blame, he only gets up and feeds the little attention seeker! When he goes away for work it only takes me a few days to train the cat out of it. The secret is to play dead. Don’t open an eye, don’t move a muscle, even if he whacks you in the face with his paw, scratches the fuck out of your wardrobe or knocks your glass of water over. You must be completely still. Promise you it works! Cat quite happily lies in until 9am when DP isn’t around, he knows his mum is not for turning.

Another poor sod here who is woken at 4:30!

Mine likes a little stroke and fuss then she snuggles back down around my head

You just have to learn to live with it! We have two. They have the run of the house (no doors shut against them) - plus a cat flap anyway - but come 'sun-up' time and they think it's fair play to come and jump on our heads!

I said to DP the other day, "I can't wait for the Winter again"!