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?

She has free range of the house until she wakes me, then she gets locked downstairs. This is anytime between 3am and 6am.

I thought she would learn that nothing good come form waking me up, but she actually purrs as I carry her downstairs. Weirdo

Cat 1 sleeps on dd1's bed. On the special cat pillow dd1 puts right next to hers. Cat 2 is either in dd1's room somewhere or downstairs on the armchair.

I dont let the cats in my room overnight as cat 2 thinks it's an all night purr fest and wants non stop fusses. I dont think it's an all night purr fest though.

Our cat sleeps in with Dd.
She keeps her window partly open and he can get in and out.
Some mornings I find him curled up with her and sometimes he is already in position outside, waiting to be fed.

@dustibooks - that's really sweet, good on DH!

Mine is shut in the kitchen overnight and I don't feel mean

I think he feels secure down there with his bed(s!), food and water and cat flap (substitute for litter tray if you keep your cat in).

In fact he often takes himself off to bed in there while I'm still in the living room, it's rather sweet 😂

He's an absolute nuisance for swatting and purring in your face - thickly whiskers and all - while you're asleep as I discovered. At 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am...
Each intrusion requires an escorted trip down to the food bowl which has food in it

*tickly whiskers

My three cats sleep mostly on the couch. Their bed in the kitchen or on the spare bed.

Ours is elderly. When we got her she was around two or three years old and we agreed she wouldn't be allowed in the bedroom and would learn to use the cat flap. After a week we learnt that she would be sleeping with us and would not be using the cat flap.

Much as I know my place I do sometimes wonder if we would have been better off perservering in not letting her upstairs at night. Thirteen years later she is deaf and yowls at night. I can't remember the last time I had a full night of sleep!

Our cat is shut in the utility room every night with a little cat bed, food, water and a cat flap to go in and out and she pleases. I do feel mean and never want to be the one to remove her from her snug sleeping place in the evening to shut her in there, but if we don't she'll wake us constantly during the night and probably wake our DDs as well who are both rubbish sleepers anyway.

One sleeps with me - either cuddled into my side or on my pillow. Another generally sleeps on the landing floor just waiting to be tripped over if you are up in the night. And my elderly nocturnal moaning mini, bless her, sleeps in a bed in the kitchen so we all get some peace at night.

From 9pm on our bed until 5 30am when dh gets up. Last thing at night we leave some wet food out (he doesn't eat dry) and that's gone when dh gets up. He doesn't wake us at the weekends ,he'll go and have some breakfast if he's hungry.

Usually our bed but sometimes the kids. He usually wakes me at 4 to let him out I assume to use his litter tray. Although mon-fri he us fed about 6.15 he is happy enough on a weekend to wait until 8 or later.

I can't be doing with cats on beds or my pillow, I'm afraid. I love them sitting on my lap etc but no way dominating me and with their mouse-ripping paws on my bedsheets ...

I do cat downstairs in big room with cat flap. And basket etc etc Not a bad bedroom!

Ours has the run of the house and usually sleeps in his basket, or sometimes at our feet.

Do you feed your cat when you get up? I read that you need to break the association between you getting up and him.being fed, plus give the evening feed later (after 8pm). We started doing this and it made a difference. We go downstairs and get our own breakfast, let him.out for a bit, etc, and he doesn't get breakfast until just before we set off for school (8ish). (By feeds I mean pouches - he has dry food to graze on all the time).

Spends most the night doing catnip at his favourite bar, rolls in around 5am, and then binges on dreamies.

I posted in a separate thread but Zooplus are doing 20% off orders with code MAIL20 until 11pm tonight. I've just saved loads on my cat's expensive food! It's free delivery if you spend £35. If they try to add on a 'heavy fee' simply break your order down into smaller orders and use the code on each one.

One of mine is out in the utility bit which has a cat flap. He either sleeps in a cat bed out there or is off somewhere chasing mice. But he is an outdoor cat and dislikes being indoors.

The other sleeps indoors if he wants to but I shut him in the kitchen which has a sofa. In the spring summer he refuses to come in preferring the same arrangement as the other one.

I can't have him upstairs overnight as he wakes me up and wakes my DD up.

Our cats sleep in our bed and DCs beds until around when the fattest cat comes and sit on my head around 5. I pretend to sleep but he starts hitting me in my face until I have to get up to feed them. They also wake me in the night if they have a query ie. can I open the window to let them out/ back in, is it possible to get fed at 2 am 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Madam the Verminator sleeps on my bed, but pops in and out to go murdering, pillaging and slaughtering at random times during the night. She’s very good though, and never disturbs me before 8 am.
If the hunting has been good, she doesn’t ask for breakfast at all, but just snoozes by my feet until I get up.
The downside is the regular crime scene on the kitchen floor tiles each morning - heads, feathers, tails, little coils of intestines, bloodstains....
I wish she wouldn’t bring her vermin indoors to finish it off!

I love how cats don’t have a problem waking us up. Ours slept on my pillow before the weeing started & in the night a back leg would gently ease my head off the pillow. I use silk pillowcases and I think he liked the silk on his fur.

Utility room with beds, food, water and litter tray. Always have been. I cannot bear them roaming around the house at night or worse still trying to sleep on my face. Most mornings when my DH goes downstairs for work they're still in their beds.

Mine is shut in open plan kitchen/living room until I get up. Otherwise he'd be patting my face and purring in my ear at 4am...

Our cat stays in the kitchen. Don't want to chance him clawing our leather sofa or dining table chairs.
It's not cruel at all

Mine usually sleeps on me.

On the other pillow. Until she decides it’s time to get up and comes over to my pillow to headbutt me and pat my face.