Cats are sleep thieves

[CloudPine]

Just how badly do your cats interrupt your sleep?

At the moment, I can be woken up every night, by my male cat playing in our room, or my female tabby crying plaintively on the landing for me. In my last house (in the countryside) I would be woken up by my tabbies bringing in live mice or birds. Once, they dropped a live mouse into my bed while I was asleep.😱Many's the time I have padded out into the garden, in the dark, to put a mouse back under a hedge, or a stunned bird into a hedge.

I've been conscious of how disruptive this for a few years now. My last g/f was really cross when her sleep was disturbed by my cats' nocturnal activities. I always rationalised it, but seeing things from her perspective, it was like being tortured!

Are we fools for allowing our precious sleep to be disrupted to this extent? Should I be locking my cats somewhere overnight?

Fortunately, I'm only disturbed by one cat during the night. She meows at my closed bedroom door to be let out to use the litter tray. The other 2 sleep in the kitchen and are generally very quiet, apart from last night. One of them was a little unwell, and I could hear it in progress at 1am this morning🤢. Obviously, this cat slave had to get up and sort it out🤔, with zero appreciation for my efforts😾

Every.single.morning.
I'm at my wit's end. Boy cat launches himself on me any time between 1:30am and 5am and then insists on draping himself round my neck while aggressively padding my face and neck. He's huge so this isn't a nice experience! He eventually gets chucked out and door closed. This used to be fine, girl cat would sleep until I got up but now she's decided she always wants out the room as well and has the loudest wail ever. So she gets chucked out. Except she's not happy with this and has learned to open the door which she does with boy cat at her heels. Launching himself on me round 2. I actually haven't a clue how to stop this as they can't be closed in anywhere due to her being able to open doors and I'm exhausted.

idiotcat used to make a huge nuisance of himself at night...up and down the bed, asking to get in and out of the covers, poking, plucking. Raking the chairs and the chaise at the foot of the bed.
Cat Olympics from the bed to the dressing table to the window to clatter the blind to spy on the Great Outdoors, yattering at the birds
He got away with it until one night he decided that the chest of drawers would be his prize....skidded across the top and caused absolute chaos in the dead of night, stuff everywhere, spilled water, lost jewellery, talk about a rude awakening! I thought the sky was falling in. 8)

So the door was shut and he was no longer allowed in. He created merry hell for three or four days but gave up, in the end, especially if we shouted "Go away, there's no one in here", like I said he's really not very bright.

Anyway, last winter I relented cos I love a pussycat on the bed and he seems to have learned his lesson, we have occasional plucking to get under the covers but he settles really nicely and purrs so beautifully he is all forgiven. And mostly he makes a little kitty nest in whatever blanket is at the foot of the bed.

However we do now have a different dog who also sleeps in the bedroom, so I think that it's an extreme powerplay to prove he is superior to the dog who has to stay on his blanket on the floor.

His sister occasionally tramples on the pillows and sleeps on someone's head, but mostly she prefers to mind her own business and sleep downstairs.

We have to sleep with the door open so dcat can come and go. We get disturbed by ds1 when he’s home from university and dcat regularly wakes me about 5am for a fuss before she goes back to sleep and I’m left wide awake. She just wants love and is very sweet but definitely a sleep thief!

She’s an only cat and wouldn’t cope with being shut in a room😢 I can’t do it to her and she wouldn’t like a companion, she hates other cats!

I don't allow my cat upstairs at nighttime, though sometimes wake up as I hear her skittering around downstairs playing or using her litter tray.

I'm surprised she accepts it - she is glued to me during the day, and miaows at any closed door. Come nighttime though she is absolutely fine with me closing her in downstairs.

I'm a bad cat slave, mine are shut downstairs overnight. They have access to litter trays, water and a large lounge and kitchen, they know their routine and have biscuits around 10pm, then I lock the cat flap and go to bed. Girl cat used to cry and scratch at the lounge door but now accepts this is the way it is. I love my cats but I need my sleep!

On a bad night probably woken about 3 times. Mainly by Cheddar. I ham happy to give her fusses. But she just doesn't know how to sit still and wants to make biscuits on my face. Which fully wakes me up if she's got a sharp claw. Magic woke me up squawking last night.

Usually DCat doesn't disturb us at night, but occasionally if she's cold or lonely she'll sneak in and wrap herself around my head in the wee hours. When that happens, I wake about 5am wondering why I'm bent into a weird shape and full of cramp with a hot sweaty head.

I wear ear plugs for current girl and the Bengal I wore Earplugs plus he was locked downstairs overnight and dh rotated the door handle 180 degrees so he couldn’t twang it all night. He had the persistence to twang it all night.

We’re nuts, face it. 😆

The people with cats who open doors need to change their door handles for door knobs. We had to do this with our German Shepherd who could open every door in the house. Including the front door when the postman came, if it wasn’t locked!

DCat here was good, but has taken to 4am food grumbling. We feed him at 5 usually. I’ve just ordered an automated feeder….

Mine are pretty good overnight these days but were very active and noisy until they were about 2 years old. They do start requesting breakfast any time after 5am though, and keep on with increasingly pathetic mews until I get up and feed them.

We spent a fortune on gorgeous matte black handles and every single one has been scratched to bits so we're now on the hunt for knobs that suit our decor!

I have also been subjected to a live mouse on the bed. My cat is generally quite lazy though and mice incidents are limited to a short period in the summer. Sometimes she has a "zoomy" period in the middle of the night where she races frantically up a d down the stairs for 5 minutes but other than that she doesn't really disturb me and I like having her on the bed. My DC (and DH) disturb me much more than the cat.

we have knobs on the doors, BUT only those silly push latches, so no twisting required. The GSD just takes hold and backs up to pull!
I have a little pull rope on the handle where it goes into the door, so he can get the back door open if it is pushed to but not shut, if he tries when the door is closed it slips onto the lever part of the handle and slips right off. A couple of times I have found it on the floor, but I think he realises it only works when the door is open
We do have some buttons for him thought so he mostly stomps on the OUTSIDE one rather than lower himself to open the door himself. I believe he has learned much from the cats!

Our cats (well, one in particular) scratch on the bedroom door (they're shut out as we have a baby), usually after we go to bed, then again at about 5am when they want breakfast. It's great when we've just got the baby down😒 I've decided no more cats after these 2😅

Mine are shut out of my room and on the weekends I sleep with ear-plugs in so I get longer sleep

I keep mine in at night so we don't get presents. Generally they play for a bit at bedtime and then sleep.
They'll wait for the kids to get up before they get up.

Occasionally we have a middle of the night fight or hairball attack.

Ours have adjusted to sleep when we do. I'm normally up before they are, so it's me waking them up as they always take my usual seat on the sofa.

We find DCat always starts bothering for food an hour before it's due. She was waking us up in the mornings demanding food, so we moved her breakfast an hour later. She now starts the "I'm starving don'tcha know" routine once we're already up

We are terrible cat owners and shut our cat in the kitchen when we go to bed - she has a cosy bed, litter tray, water etc. She is otherwise an absolute menace and the only one to get any sleep.

Just before Christmas she had an upset tummy and was really poorly. We left the door open in case she was sad in the night, and I have never been so happy to wake up to a cat pulling my hair and head butting me. (The vet appointment was cancelled after she wolfed down poached chicken and shouted for biscuits.)

I have four outside cats and they all sleep wherever they fancy. One is asleep on me right now. She usually sleeps at
My feet in bed but if I move thru the night she will slash me
For disturbing her.
So now I subconsciously have my legs curled up so I don't get hit but I couldn't put her out. Then she grooms herself they the night and that noise drives me nuts then the other three will pop in and have a sleep actually on top of me, their cat flap is in the kitchen right
Below my
Bedroom and the noise of it swinging all night wakes me up, then the other girl chases her tail on my bannister outside my room, then as soon as the birds are up they are all wanting fed. Cats are the Bain of my sleep but I love them so much I can't do anything lol x

This has been the biggest shock about having cats. Mine must sleep on me. Plus they fight about who gets the best bits.

We've been decorating the living room and shutting the cats out of there at night. The tesult is that instead of 2 cats on the bed every night (Karl at my feet, Basil at DW's feet), we now also have Sybil sleeping between us, and she usually wakes up at 5.00 for a fuss (and to get into bed). I regularly wake up feeling uncomfortable & contorted into a tiny space between cats.
Little furry fuckers 😹

We have three and they don't disturb us at all.

Mine are indoor cats and the routine for all three of them from day one is that they're shut downstairs at night. They have access to the sofa, blankets, their cat tree, litter trays, biscuits and water and they're just fine down there all night.

Whenever I get up for a wee (our bathroom is downstairs) they're all fast asleep in various bundles on the sofa.

I'm always surprised by these threads - I can't believe so many people tolerate being woken up at 3am by their cats 😳