Adding a kitten when you already have cats

[GorgeousLadyofWrestling]

How did it go?

We have two 2 year old cats. They’re absolutely lovely, the sweetest temperaments. For reasons I won’t go into (mainly I just wanted him!), I have acquired an 11 week old kitten. We’ve kept him in the front room and briefly introduced our other two to him. Lots of hissing and they’re not happy 🙈

Will they get used to him? Will they accept him as part of the family? We’ve only had him 24 hours so early days.

Pics cos I know it’s the rule 😂

We've done this. Ours were 5 and 4 when we got our kitten (who is now two).

We did the very un-MN thing of just putting them all together (with supervision) and aside from the odd hiss we've never had any fights or problems. We did separate the kitten overnight for a week or so though, just to give them all some space.

They shared food, litter and water after about 48 hours with no issues and they'll sleep together, groom each other etc. all the time.

Kitten has currently gone walkabout and the other two keep looking for him and pining 😞 he's only been gone a couple of days.

Photo for cat tax!

I hate to say it but we followed all the usual guidance and ours hate each other. Never sleep together, no mutual grooming and fights at every mealtime (despite separate bowls, locations etc).

We hoped they'd be chums but they had other ideas. I think sometimes they just will get on and sometimes they won't. 💁‍♀️

Yeah I guess it’s pot luck. I’ve had two much older cats move in with two older cats before and they mostly just avoided each other. I’m hoping because of their ages, they accept him.

I'm sure I've read that it can be easier to introduce a kitten to an older cat if it's the opposite sex as it takes away the 'threat' factor.

In our experience, a bit of hissing and putting the little one in its place is fine. Full-on yowling and one cat deciding to exist only as a terrified pair of eyes in the shoe cupboard, not fine.

Much to our surprise, our kitten brought our very timid adult cat out of its shell, and taught it to play and to miaow. But a previous attempt to mix two unrelated adults was a disaster.

We've had our kitten since September;our older cat likes to pretend he hates her still although when he thinks we're not looking he's very sweet with her and then as soon as he clocks us looking he's back to hissing at her.

We introduced a boy kitten to our 5 yr old girl (a few years after a failed attempt to match her with an adult female). While there was never any out and out fighting and they co-existed, she never took to him (always giving him the side-eye and would give him a slap if he got too close). She was clearly happier after he died and enjoyed her final months being a solo cat.

When we looked for our current cats, we deliberately went for a pre-bonded pair, as I didn't want to take the chance doing introductions again. The difference in seeing how they interact with each other makes me a bit sad that our previous pair never had that.

Much to our surprise, our kitten brought our very timid adult cat out of its shell, and taught it to play and to miaow. But a previous attempt to mix two unrelated adults was a disaster.

We had exactly the same with a shy adult cat. He now grooms the kitten and goes looking for him so they can play.

We have two males and a female - all neutered so I'm not sure it's a sex thing, more a personality thing.

When our 8yo dcat became depressed after his db died we got a tiny dkitten. Dcat slept in dd's room with all of his dcat stuff..
Simply dumped dkitten, an extra bed, bowls and tray and left them to it (with dd too!).

Few days later....

Found myself in the exact same situation 10 days ago! I have a 5 year old male, 4 year old female and have just introduced a 9 week old female kitten. We done the same, kept the kitten separate bedroom, slow introduction, scent swapping and moved kitten into cat carrier occasionally and let the other 2 come in and have a wonder and a sniff, we’re now almost 2 weeks in and kitten roams freely around the house, 2 cats still hiss occasionally and the odd bat here and there, but settling in well. Don’t worry, lots of initial hissing is normal. My 2 are older and less tolerant. They’ll start to come round eventually!
Elder 2 now watch said kitten cause distraction and the only time they ever show a hint of aggression is when kitten playfully bites DS age 3 foot. I think in another few weeks I think they’ll all have fully adjusted to the idea!