Cat waking us up early every morning

[AllstarFacilier]

Hi,

We recently adopted a rescue cat. She’s approximately one year old and was taken from the house of someone with MH issues when social services got involved with their care. From what we’ve gathered, she used to hide through the day and come out for food at night. She’s very skittish and not at all affectionate, and is very food motivated and comes running to meow at the cupboards every time we go into the kitchen. We assumed she was hungry and kept feeding her, but she’s putting on weight and so we’re having to be more careful.

As I say, she’s not particularly affectionate, but she hates being locked out of a room we’re in. So if someone closes a bedroom door, she’ll claw at the carpet and scratch at the door to get in. My kids can’t sleep with doors open, and so each morning between 4-6 she’ll go around doors clawing and meowing. She also becomes super affectionate at this time and wants stroked and purrs - it’s the only time she really does this. It’s cute, but it’s too early and she’s waking the house up. Even if doors are open, she’ll meow to wake us up. I think she knows we’ll be getting up around 6am and so she knows she’ll be getting fed soon, so wants us awake. We’ve bought toys and things to try and keep her amused. We can’t leave biscuits down as she just eats everything in one go and has previously been sick.
I was looking into an automatic good timer, but I’d need to control how much food came out and the times, whereas some dump quite a lot out every 6 hours, and some are quite expensive.

does anyone have any ideas how to stop her from waking us up, or how to stop her clawing at the carpet and doors?

Put rugs or door mats down by the doors, she'll claw those rather than the carpet.

I would keep your door open so she can sleep with you. Sounds like she IS affectionate but it's going to take her some time to come out of her shell. Just keep hand feeding her treats and then try and stroke her when she does. Maybe a bit of cat nip to relax her too.

Is there not a room she can be shut in overnight? With a hard floor. With water and perhaps an automatic feeder?
We adore our cats and they're spoilt but we can't have them upstairs at night as one plays pounce all night with toes and feet under the duvet and the other just wakes you up all night. They're 5 years and not outgrown it. We do have a large hard floor kitchen diner though.
If you are able to do that it might reset the day/night thing and make your cat sociable during the day.

That's cats, its what they do. Sleep all day and are lively dusk and dawn. Cats are crepuscular.

Welcome to their world.

Just wait until summertime when its light at 4 am

Do you have any Feliway plug-ins? That would help to settle her a bit.

The food-driven thing does diminish over time, once they have been used to regular mealtimes for a few months, they stop being so obsessed with where their next meal is coming from.

Agree with a pp who suggested that you leave your bedroom door open for now.

We have similar, and so used an automatic feeder. Cat is shut in our kitchen/dining area overnight with a lovely warm heated bed, a normal bed and water, litter tray and the feeder. He is very happy now, and we all get more sleep.

We have one of these

We had the same and had to let ours have free run of the house, he just got use to settling down with us in bed for an early morning cuddle eventually.

We put food down before we came to bed.

She's just being a cat - but if you don't want her waking you up you need to come up with a better nighttime routine. Our cat is shut in the living/dining/kitchen at night with food, water and a litter tray. She knows the drill and I give her some biscuits at bedtime to entice her in there before I go up to bed. If I didn't shut her in there she'd a) go out at night, which I don't want and b) wake us at whatever time she deemed suitable for breakfast, which would be much earlier than we wanted to get up. So decide what would suit you best and then do that.

When you're in bed, she knows it's a safe place, warm, soft, cosy and you're not moving around and spooking her. She's trying to be affectionate, but shutting the doors is making her feel excluded, alone and unwanted.

Keep your door open, maybe have a faux fur throw on the end of the bed and she'll learn to relax a bit more so she can possibly accept affection in quieter times of the day as well.

I have 2 wonderful cats and shut them in the sitting room/dining room when I go to bed. I feed them a large tin of wet food between them at 10pm. They are also left a saucer of cat kibble but they only ever eat a bit of that. DH gets up at 6.30am and feeds them another tin of wet food. They are both very affectionate cats and I've had them since they were tiny kittens. They are from the same litter. One large fluffy boy and one smaller short haired girl cat.

We shut our cats in the kitchen at night with a small handful of biscuits before bed and access to water and the catflap. Otherwise they'd be scratching at bedroom doors or nudging us at 5am for early breakfast!

As it is if we have a lie in at the weekend it sounds like a murder is being commited in the kitchen with all the howling, scratching and headbutting of the kitchen door past 7.30! 😼

if you find an answer, let us know! We have had this for 10 years, and no solution found. It is better with the door open and the cat allowed to get onto the bed to sleep. You are wrong about your puss not being affectionate though, she clearly wants to be with you

Feed her last thing before you go up to bed. Keep a small amount of biscuits out at night. Cats are often sick when stressed. Let her be in bed with you she wants to be with you and don’t further stress her by excluding her. She’s not a dog to be trained. She wants warmth and company at night, that’s not unusual.

Our cat sleeps in the utility room, where her food and litter tray are. She has a timed dispenser for biscuits throughout the day and gets some wet food at bed time, which gets her into
the utility room.
Our feeder is this one. We like it as it weighs out dry food so we can keep her portions accurate. We just give her wet food in the morning and evening in a separate bowl.

If you want to provide a pop up feeder for early morning get a basic cheap one and only load it with a small portion so she doesn't overeat. But I don't think doing that will stop her coming to wake you up. You don't need the auto feeder during the day presumably - you can feed her at set hours?

I agree with the other posts suggesting shutting her in a room downstairs overnight. That is what I've always done with my cats, as I don't want them waking me up and I am pretty sure they would if they could. It may take your cat a short while to get used to the idea but if you make sure she has a comfy place to sleep she'll be fine. Unless you do that, I doubt you will stop the behaviour.

Thanks for the ideas. We’ll look into the plug ins. We’ve tried locking her in the kitchen but she butts the door to be let out. We leave our bedroom door open and she sleeps on the end of the bed, but the kids like their doors closed at night for them to sleep and she doesn’t like that. She’s been clawing at their beds too, so we try to keep her out of there. We had a mat by one door, but she kept peeing on it and slowing at it, and it would lift up and bang down louder than just the carpets. It’s exhausting, I slept better with young children!

If mine does that I either feed him or put him out.
Son locks his in the downstairs bathroom.

I'd highly recommend a heated bed. My cat comes to join us early morning when he gets cold, and the bed cured that.