Where is your cat overnight?

[Judystilldreamsofhorses]

Our cat has recently started coming into our bed at exactly 5am, demanding breakfast. She’s six, and has always come in round about getting up time (6.30) but this earlier invasion is very annoying - there is no way I’m getting up at 5, but I tend not to properly go back to sleep after her patting me in the face, purring, and pulling my hair. DP sleeps through, so she doesn’t even entertain him. She will eventually settle down between us until the alarm, but that 90 minutes of lost sleep makes me grumpy.

She has constant access to dry food, so it’s not that she’s starving, and actually she goes out as soon as I get up, then has breakfast after I am showered/dressed.

My DP is threatening to shut her overnight in the kitchen. I think this is cruel, since it would be a huge change. (She can open our bedroom door.) We do have a big kitchen, she could have a bed in there, her food/water is there, and there’s a litter tray in the utility room. But it just feels mean when she’s used to sleeping on a fur throw on the sofa.

Where do your cats sleep? Will this phase come to an end?

Ours sleeps upstairs in the evening then when we turn the tv off waits at the top of the stairs for me to carry him down and put him on a chair in the living room with a blanket (yes he's spoilt!) he then sleeps locked in the lounge/dining room/conservatory with access to litter tray food and water till we get up

Ours are shut in back room/kitchen overnight - big space with cat flap, litter trays, food & water & various beds (cardboard boxes are favourite - see pic )

They’ve never been allowed in the rest of the house at night. Occasionally one will disappear during the evening & then wake somebody up in the middle of the night but they get short shrift.

Prowls his domain - my bed, the sitting room, the kitchen, the garden. And repeat, several times.

snowy I did think about one of those weight things that are usually meant for keeping doors open. She doesn’t wander overnight (no catflap), I think it’s just that when she wakes up she thinks we should immediately serve her.

fluffy so sorry to hear about your cat.

Ours spends the earlier part of the night looking out the kitchen to keep an eye on his domain. He then sleeps on our bed.
He can be a bugger sometimes which appears to be when he needs the loo. No idea why such a fuss as he has a tray...
I am a bit concerned when the lighter mornings are here and the birds are chirping he will wake sooner like he did last year.

Maybe give her some wet food before you go bed or fresh dry food which may fill her up until you wake up. I know this weather makes me hungry so maybe the same for your cat?

R cat usually curls up at bottom of ds bed an is fine till we get up I just feed her right b4 am of to bed. Can you put something behind your door so it doesn't open as easy then she still has run of the house not just kitchen.

We used to lock ours in the kitchen as one of them started using the bedroom carpet as a toilet. Even though they have 5 litter trays dotted about. No idea why this started and it was only at nighttime!

So once they were in the kitchen over night, with litter trays, she started to wee in front of the kitchen door. And then turned into another cat number 2-ing on the floor 🙃Was it stress or revenge? I do not know. Again, only at nighttime.

So we compromised and just kept the bedroom door shut. And it stopped. And at 7 o'clock they would paw at the bedroom door for feeding.

We've recently started letting them in the bedroom overnight again and the bedroom carpet weeing has stopped. Occasionally our boy cat will paw me, he legit pulls out individual hairs from the scalp or hooks a claw up a nostril. However since keeping the cat carrycase out after the vet visits he's been sleeping in this on an evening so this week has been very peaceful!

Our bed. Any early morning waking is dealt with by firm ignoring and has been given up.

Old lady cat sometimes arrives and does a hair pulling act in the middle of the night but she is forgiven due to being Old Lady Cat and possibly demented and just wanting a cuddle.

Similar behaviour from the 2-yr-old gets short shrift.

If dh is on days, the cat sleeps downstairs. If dh is on nights, she sleeps where she likes. Dh got so fed up of being woken up in the middle of the night that she has to go downstairs. I don’t generally hear her, but if she wakes me, she will spend the next couple if nights downstairs until I forget to shut her in and then she’s back on my bed.

My parents cats have always slept in the kitchen. They have their bed, food, litter tray, it’s warm, they are fine.

lifeisgood we experimented with “supper” at weekends, but she is still through at 6.30, even if we’re late to bed. The 5am thing is just in the last week or so! Maybe it’s because the mornings are getting lighter?

21 yo wailing old lady has had to be relegated to the utility room for the past couple of years. She's very loud and I know she's not happy at night but she kept waking both young DC up and us, so our requirement for sanity won. She sleeps all day on our bed and follows me up the garden path during the day so I hope she's happy enough but we need our sleep!

I don’t think my cat wakes early because she is hungry, I think she probably wants a wee but doesn’t want to go on her tray, so scratches the walls and cries so we let her out. I’ve noticed on wet or really cold mornings, there are no early wake ups though.

Our cats are shut in the kitchen overnight (they have a flap to access the outside). We do this to a) stop unwanted gifts 🐭 🐦 b) avoid being pounced and purred on during the night. It's always been that way (although DCat 2 does often meow in the small hours to let us know he's there and wanting some food).

On the bed and the windowsill ash cat likes to barrel roll me at three am (literally rolls over on my face) but if I cuddle him he goes back to sleep apollo likes to stand on me and charlie broke my divan to get underneath and snores under the bed which occasionally vibrates it 🤷‍♀️

Our cat has the run of the kitcjen and living room. He sleeps on a blanket on the sofa. If we allow him upstairs to sleep on our bed he wakes up at 4am and starts clawing the carpets. Hes fine downstairs and just gets fed and let out when we get up in the morning.

We have a cat flap so he can go in and out he has access to whole house but our bedroom door is firmly shut from pets, I feed him and our dog at 6am every morning, on weekends I just go back to bed after.

One usually plonks herself on my waist(I’m a side sleeper), one sleeps on a cushion in the youngest DD’s den under her bed, and the other chooses a child to cosy up with. They all have free run of the house and a catflap, but choose to be around us.

Mine is in the conservatory overnight.just about to put her to bed and head up myself actually.

Ours sleep on our bed every night. BoyCat usually attempts to sleep either on me, or in a ball next to my head. (He is currently in a ball next to my pillow as I type this).

In dds1+2 room, normally either in his basket under their desk or his cushion next to the radiator
Occasionally he will sleep on dd2s bed(his favourite person)

My cat is 11 and sleeps in his bed in the kitchen or sometimes stays out overnight if the mood takes him, he’s never had run of the house overnight as he would take turns running through the bedrooms jumping on everyone and waking them up

My kitchen and livingroom are connected so my cat is shut in the two of those. Dry food, fresh water and litter tray in the kitchen, and a cat bed and a sofa to choose from in the livingroom. Hes shut in because he likes to sleep on my head if given the chance, or he'll sit outside the bedroom door yowling all night, both of which make me dislike him immensly, so shut in it is

I woke up to one of mine on my chest this morning. A first for him

2 of mine sleep with me and the other one sleeps in the kitchen. She's a big bully so has to be kept separate.

This is the bully girl.