Rescue cat meowing at night

[wildflowerwallflower]

Hi all

Just posting for advice please :)

We adopted our rescue cat a few weeks ago - she's about 18 months old and had previously been a stray. She was very timid and hid under our bed for most of the first two weeks but she's now coming out of her shell and starting to trust us.

She's a very good eater and seems to be constantly hungry! We've been feeding her two wet food pouches along with some dried food spread throughout the day so she doesn't gobble it up as soon as we put it down (I think since she used to be a stray she's not used to being fed regularly?)

However, at night she cries constantly for food and fuss and it's keeping us awake! We're trying to just ignore it in the hope she'll drop the habit but I feel so guilty in case something's wrong! We have an open-plan downstairs and normally sleep with our bedroom door open so she can roam freely but chooses to meow in our doorway all night! Does anyone have any tips on how we can get her to stop, or are we on the right track with the ignoring method?

She'd have me believing she was starving in the middle of the night if I wasn't the one feeding her throughout the day!

You can buy puzzle feeders for biscuits where they have to use their paws to drag the biscuits out. Zooplus sell them. It might keep her occupied.

Is the biscuit high in maize or wheat? They can’t digest it as well as high meat content biscuits.

Is she actually meowing for food or is she wanting to spend the night out?

Puzzle box look on Pinterest for ideas

She won't stop until she gets what she wants. Leave food out for her to graze on during the night and see if that solves it.

Thanks all for your replies! We always make sure she has some dried food for in the night but she absolutely loves wet food so I think she's meowing for that (I honestly believe she would eat her way through about four or five sachets a day if we let her... we don't obviously!) I will look into a puzzle feeder though and see if that does the trick.

I don't think she's meowing to go outside as we've not let her out yet, she's getting her vaccinations in a few days though (combination of wanting her to settle into our house and a backlog at the vets has caused a slight delay) but I'm hoping that in a few weeks once she's able to go out it will burn up some of her energy during the day! :)

2 of my cats have 4 pouches of wet food each per day. They holler at me and hassle me until I give in. My other cat doesn't even finish one pounch per day. Give her a pouch of wet food at bedtime and see if that helps. Good luck

Ours had 4.5 pouches. 5 if he really wanted it.

Oh really? I thought two sachets a day plus some dried food was the standard for most cats? I would happily give her more wet food but as she's not going outside for a few more weeks I'm aware she's probably not using as much energy as she normally would and don't want to overfeed her. She was a skinny little thing when we first got her but she's definitely put on weight over the last few weeks (in a good way - she looks much healthier now!)

I will consider giving her another sachet/half a sachet though if she's really keen for it though!

I thought two sachets a day plus some dried food was the standard for most cats?

It will be for most cats. How big is she?

1. photo is obligatory
2. you need to wake up and fuss her
3. did nobody tell you she is your master now?

Some people manage their "cat feeding" much better than I do All of my cats have been big eaters, except one of my little girls, and have all lived very long lives, so I don't worry about it. Just see if she wants more food. It may not be that, she might just want attention and to play in the middle of a the night