Kittens waking up early!

[CheeriosOrFrosties]

My two are 9 months now and since I got them at about 3 months I've been putting them in the lounge at night.

In the last month or so, one of them has decided to start jumping up at the door handle in a bit to escape at increasingly earlier and earlier times - today it was 3.45am!

I have tried to ignore it and hope that it will extinguish the behaviour, but I have 2 children and one of the kids' bedrooms is opposite the lounge, so he is also now getting woken up in the middle of the night by the cats, which doesn't seem at all fair on him.

They have a cat flap in the kitchen but they don't have access to this overnight, and I can't shut them in the kitchen as it's open plan and the stairs are accessible from there.

Any ideas as to what I can do?

I'm absolutely knackered after a month of this!

At the moment when they do it (they have never actually managed to open the door, just jump up repeatedly and make a terrible racket!) I let them out of the lounge, they go running downstairs and meow at the door to go out, so I let them out and then go back to bed myself, but interrupted sleep is crappy! Help!

All quiet until 3.20 when they started fighting on the bed.

At 3.30 one of them announced proudly with loud meowing that he had brought me his favourite toy (that crinkles)

At 3.45 they both (by the sounds of it) used the litter tray and then came up and walked over my pillow and hair. I can smell shit, so that’s something fun to look forward to when I get up.

At 4am I’ve opened the cat flap so at least I’ve got some peace for a bit whilst they go out.

Yup, my girl cat finds closed doors extremely offensive, she’s an oriental though and noisy at the bst of times. Boy barn cat doesn’t care about anything but his Daddy and meat. In that order.

Ours are both around one now and have access outside 24/7. We live rurally though and it’s extremely quiet here.

Good luck getting some rest OP 🙂🐈‍⬛🙂

My cats are now just over a year old.

You do need to keep them in one room to start with to give them a base but by nine months they will want to explore more.

I gave mine unlimited outside access around this time as it reduced the early morning big zoomies (they did it outside I stead)

Either give them the run of the house or change the door handle, a round one they cannot get hold of or put it upside down so you have to pull up rather than down.

My cats are now 7 years old. They have been fed at 7.30am their whole lives.

They were still trying it on loudly at 5.30am this morning.

I don't think they grow out of it.

My boy used to bring me his favourite "toy" (it was not a cat toy, it was some key covers) late at night/early in the morning. You don't realise how clever they are until they try to wake you 😂. He would drop them on a box to make noise, then started dropping them on me if I didn't respond to wake me up. He liked us to throw them and play fetch.anyway long story short..... I hid them 😂

My last pair of foster kittens were allowed to sleep on my bed until they started making a racket, at which point I always shut them out.

They learned… eventually. Or it may have been that they grew up a bit & calmed down.

Thankfully mine still stays in the living room overnight without a fuss - she's around 8 months. I've done that since I got her as we have dogs and initially it was to keep them separate while they got used to eachother. In the day she has free rein to the rest of the house and access to the garden when I'm home.

Mine is 2 and still beds down in the living room overnight. He sometimes knocks on the door when the sun comes up or if I get up for a wee but usually stops quickly, he waits until he hears the alarm clock and then starts shouting! Sometimes I hear him running around but I'm fairly sure he mostly sleeps.

If you have a reason to shut them in, we use a childproof handle locker, it stops the handle being pushed down and isn't loud.

Well we are having mixed results with the not locking them in the lounge anymore trial.

They seem to be shortening the time that they are asleep/restful overnight (when shut in the lounge they would be quiet between 10pm and 4am) - last night they finally settled down after chasing each other up and down the stairs and leaping onto my back at about 11:30pm, and started attacking my hair and fighting again on the bed at 3:10am.

I let them outside at that point because it's the only way to stop them pestering me jumping on my bed/head, but it's not anywhere near dawn and I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not.

I'm also absolutely knackered.

Of course, given their nightly exploits, they are sleeping a lot during the day.

Mine are 8, 4 and 1 and are all shut inside and downstairs overnight. Every time I come down for a wee or for a drink, they're bundled up sleeping on the sofa - they only seem to get up when they hear our alarm go, or hear us actually talking upstairs.

That's been their routine since the day we brought them home and so they don't know any different - if they are noisy then we don't hear them through two closed doors anyway.

There's absolutely no way I'd let them on the bed or in our room overnight, none of us would get any sleep!

I personally wouldn't let them out at 3am because it is when they are most likely to fight/kill things/get lost

But you have to have amazing ignoring skills. And if you once relent, they will not forget that one time you gave in for years and so keep trying it on.

They are kittens though, it's their job to be cute but mental.

I agree about not letting them out in the middle of the night - more likely to get into fights, especially at their ages, they're so young.

I don't let cats out at all until they're one at the absolutely minimum, just because kittens are stupid and have absolutely no sense of danger.

I don’t know how I can ignore a cat full on attacking my head with its back legs?!

I might see if I can get a door (with a high handle) fitted in the kitchen. I honestly can’t cope indefinitely with this lack of sleep. It’s just me (and the kids) here - no other adult - and I haven’t had a full nights sleep for months now.

I’ve realised that this all started since they spent a week in the cattery when we went away in May half term so I wonder if that is related somehow?

Don't let them in the bedroom - shut them away downstairs with food, water, litter and beds, use a round door handle so they can't open the door, stick some earplugs in and ignore them. It's the only way.

If you give in, shout at them or give them any kind of attention, you're just teaching them how to get what they want.

Honestly, they'll be fine. We've always shut cats downstairs/out of bedrooms and in almost two decades it's never been any kind of problem.

No @OldTinHat you cannot crate a cat. That would be extremely cruel.

You may have to crate a cat after surgery. Mine had a broken leg and now has lots of metal in it and the vet insisted on crating after the op.

Not a great idea for a healthy cat though.

Mine can be an absolute pain and wake me up at 3am

I got a timed feeder which helps, that goes off at 4.30am
If he's being a complete arse then I shut him in the living room/kitchen (he has his food, water, tray, cat tree etc in there)
I need sleep!

Mine went out at night and had the run of the house from 6 months. They mostly go out all night and sleep all day! The only downside is the prey they bring in over night. Lots of dead mice. Sometimes a live one they catch later 😬

You think about how their mum would have told them to pack it in and swipe them off the bed.