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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

Need advice for my sanity - 4am cat wake ups

6 replies

LabelleLabelle · 28/06/2023 12:23

Hi all
we lost our dog recently who slept with me at night. He wasn’t overly keen on sharing with DCat so she would sleep in DD’s room or downstairs at night. Ddog was lazy and didn’t like mornings so I would get up at my normal alarm time of 7am.

I assumed dcat would continue to sleep in her usual places after Ddog passed way but she has decided that my bedroom and bed is now also hers. She has a bed downstairs but she refuses to stay out of my room. She will take up the carpet and doors for hours if I was to shut her out so that isn’t an option to keep her from the rooms.

She wakes me up every day at 4am and I often cannot go back to sleep as she will just harass me constantly until I get up. She knows that scratching things will get my attention so she will climb all over me then go off scratching things on purpose 😑.

She is asking for food, she is fed at 10/11pm each night. She can only seem to tolerate wet food as dry food makes her vomit, so I can’t leave dry food out for nibbles. She eats a whole pouch of wet food in one go. She will ONLY eat fish flavoured felix which isn’t the best quality but she will not try anything else.

She is a very petite framed female indoor 10year old cat in perfect health. She isn’t skinny at all in fact I would say she’s got a chunky wobbly belly on her whilst she is a small light cat.

Firstly, should I just be feeding her more food? 3 x 100g pouches a day is not enough? I will try to weigh her but I think she’s about 2.5-3kg. If I feed her 2 x pouches in one go I think she would wolf it down then be sick. 4 pouches a day seems a lot?

any other suggestions welcome 🤗

OP posts:
LabelleLabelle · 28/06/2023 12:28

Just to clarify she is fed 3 times a day not just at night

OP posts:
NotAMissionPriority · 28/06/2023 12:34

I'd feed her more.

I'd also be tempted to get a timer food bowl at goes off at 3.55am.

cinnamonfrenchtoast · 28/06/2023 16:43

If she's a healthy weight then I would say the amount of food is fine, but I would try splitting her breakfast in two.

So she gets a full pouch at 11pm, then get a timed feeder to open just before 4am with half a pouch in it, then she gets the remaining half when you wake up.

Cats are crepuscular so it's normal for them to want to eat at dawn/dusk when they're most active - mine are left with dry food down 24/7 and we also shut them downstairs at night so they can't disturb us, but that's been the routine from day one so they've never known any different.

AwkwardPaws27 · 28/06/2023 16:47

As she's on the mature side, I'd get her thyroid checked. Hyperthyroidism is very common in older cats (not that 10 is particularly old, but it is considered senior for a cat).

Theunamedcat · 28/06/2023 16:49

Timer cat food bowl

LabelleLabelle · 28/06/2023 16:55

I will get her checked with a vet. We tried to weigh her she is only about 2.5kg but that’s normal for her, she is really healthy generally she just likes to throw up dry food!

a timed bowl - I just wonder if she would spend all night trying to angrily smash it up! 😣 but I am prepared to try anything. I did wonder if she was bored as well so trying to get me up out of boredom we have tried other pets but she doesn’t warm well to other animals

thanks!

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