Cat (kitten) aggressively waking us

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Hi everyone, new enough to MN and have never started a thread so bear with me!
Also new to cat ownership but can safely say our two fur babies have stolen our hearts in a way we never saw coming.

Background - we have two kittens (one male, one female) 'adopted' from an irresponsible neighbour who has several roaming and highly fertile cats. Got them when they were probably too young to be away from mother cat and it was a steep learning curve. They are now around 7/8 months old, and seem very happy. Mostly indoor, litter trained from day one (mostly!) and like to go out to hunt morning and evening generally.

Our only (admittedly minor!) issue is that the male consistently wakes us in the morning by aggressively throwing himself against our bedroom door. He isn't looking for food - usually there is plenty left from when we feed them before we go to bed, and he isn't very interested when we refresh food. We think he may be looking for either cuddles or looking to be let outside for a bit. Has anyone experienced this? Is there anything that we should be doing to prevent it? Or have we become the kind of people who have to get up at 5.30 a.m to appease the cat?!

This is normal. You either lock them in the kitchen overnight with a tray etc (cats shouldn’t be put out overnight) or you embrace early mornings.

Leave your bedroom door open at night. He then won't wake you up trying to get in.

Because he’ll already of woken you casually walking over you in bed “oh you’re awake, me too let’s play”

We keep our two closed in downstairs with litter tray, food etc. I keep mine locked in overnight. My Leo is a especially vocal cat and would be meowing his head off very early if he was upstairs!

That's normal, and part of a cat's job description. Spongecat used to do that. Now she is old, she CBA. :)

😂 get used to it would be my advice! Our last cat used to make an awful noise to get us up in the morning, if it wasn’t the kids waking us up, it was the cat, loved him to bits though. Broke our hearts when we had to have him PTS at 18.

If he isn't neutered, he'll be horny and wanting to go out looking for lurve...

If he is neutered, he just doesn't want to be locked out of the 'homely good smells' room and wants to make his smells mingle too.

...and that's how we ended up spending our nights curled up with the cats on our bed.

One of them even gets under the duvet!

Oh wow, thanks so much to everyone for the replies!
@Fluffycloudland77 @miccoops Unfortunately we live in a tiny cottage while awaiting an extension, so the bedroom opens off the kitchen. They basically have full run of the house, minus the bedroom, at night.
We discussed leaving a window open for them to come and go at night. Would this be safe for them?

@SpongeBobJudgeyPants That's what I'm afraid of! But good to know it improves with age... Maybe!

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats We talked about this too, but having tried this when we were visiting over Christmas (within lockdown rules!) we found we got no sleep at all with the purring and excitement. Maybe they would calm if they got used to it?!

So sorry @Roselilly36 that you had to say goodbye. I'm genuinely shocked at how attached and downright pathetic we've become. Between the Christmas costumes and bringing them with us on overnight stays with my parents, I really am so attached now!

He is neutered @yaboo, and part of me wonders if he just misses us at night? And then I remember he is a cat and I am crazy!

@umpteennamechanges I think the solution may just be to leave the door open and hope he calms down enough to just curl up with us! He can be very cuddly and loving but it depends on the time of the day!

Thanks again everyone, really appreciate all the responses. My friends all think I'm a crazy cat lady (and think they should be left outside!) so it's good to get genuine thoughts!

Mine just wants to cuddle and go back to sleep early morning he has a corner of my bed and his own blanket

No, they must be in when it’s dark.

Have they got any interactive toys they can play with? Maybe something they only get to use overnight so it’s a novelty. They like variety so it’s best practice to rotate them.

Barbebengal on insta has a large rope she plays with.

Mine thinks I sleep for too long. He wants me to get up at 5 and sits on my head hitting me in the face for hours. Then when I wake around 8, he goes to sleep

How rural is your house? Advice is to keep them in when dark but our cat is desperate to out that early in the morning so we put a cat flap in which stops him waking us up, most of the time. Our house is on a quiet cul-de-sac though with open fields out the back. Cats are naturally active at dawn and dusk so you’ll need to get used to it or shut him in a kitchen if you can’t let him out!

We also keep our cats in at night on the advice of our vet, they are more likely to get into cat fights at night and I worry they will be hit by a car if they're not seen.

We have a Sureflap Connect cat flap which we can set a curfew on via an app, so it locks in the evening at a time of our choosing, then unlocks in the morning at 5am so they can get out. We also sleep with our bedroom door open, nothing like waking up to kitty cuddles 😀

If they are outdoor access cats then I would recommend getting a cat flap anyway, our cats are in and out all the time. The Sureflap we have is also a microchip one, if your neighbour has cats then it's a good idea as it means other cats can't come in to steal food / bully your cats. This was a real problem for us until we got the microchip cat flap and means our cats have a safe space to run to if they get bullied by the neighbours cats (which happens at least once a day as our cats are not quite fully grown so get picked on by the cats that are bigger than them).

Ours will jump on the bed, sleep on DP for a bit, then pull my hair until I get up. She likes to do this about 5am. Mainly she is shut in the kitchen - she doesn’t like using a litter tray but we have one in there just in case, her bed is by the radiator, and she has dry food and water.

Initially I felt mean shutting her in, but actually now she goes straight to her bed if you say “beddy-bed-time”, and is still in it in the morning when one of us goes through.

@Theunamedcat Ours seem like they would be happy with similar!

Thanks again @Fluffycloudland77! We haven't got many toys at the minute, as they never seem too interested, but I'll definitely have a look at that Instagram page and invest!

Yes @Cecily42 have found that if I get up and give attention and cuddles for a few minutes he's happy and will leave us in peace for a few hours!

@Thehousejackbuilt and @violetbunny the goal would 100% be to eventually have a cat flap for them. We're currently planning an extension to our
(very VERY rural) tiny cottage so it will be in the plans, but it's still a long while off completion. The window would be a short term solution but on second thought, I think the temporary solution will be to either have them in our room or put up with early mornings! They currently have the open window throughout most of the day to come and go as they please. (Plus I think our boy is most likely the bully in most situations!!)

My cat is like this, I eventually gave up and now just leave the bedroom door open for her. She wakes me when she initially comes in when she's trying to cuddle up but then she settles and will usually lie for another few hours so it doesn't bother me too much. Far better than her banging the door for hours anyway.

Just let him
In your room at night.

Cheddar used to wake my up for a cuddle but is now much better. She'll only disturb me if I'm awake now. And I'd otherwise to be found curled up
On the other pillow.

I’m sorry OP, but it’s your own fault. Sleeping in your cats bedroom and then denying them access to it is against all the rules of decent minded cat servitude . Have you not read The Cat Slave Manual (revised 1995) ?

Our littlest hobo has decided that 6:30 am is THE BEST time to play throw the mouse at mum/drop mouse on mums head/tuck mouse under duvet and then kill it - whilst mum is still under the duvet.
Mouse is a cat nip stuffed toy and five of them live in my duvet😳