Kitten - when can she roam around the house at night?

[Oaktree1952]

Just that really. We’ve just bought a new kitten. She’s 10 weeks old. She wanders around downstairs when we are around but I’m worried about night times. When do you think she would be old enough to be “free” at night time. She currently sleeps in a create by my bed. Am I worrying too much? I got my last cat at 7 months and wasn’t ever worried about him but this one is so small.

It was a bit different for us as we had another cat when we got ours and we were managing the interaction but we got them at 13 weeks and I think we only started letting them roam at night about 4 weeks later. We kitten proofed our front room and they started in there while we were asleep / out.

We got our two kittens when they were 12 weeks old, also already have another 5 year old cat.
we had a massive pen where they went in for first few weeks in our room with us so we could keep an eye on them, then we moved them to downstairs kitchen gradually moved them out of the pen at night time but locked the kitchen door and I’d say past three weeks they’ve now been given free reign around the house we sleep with our bedroom door open so I can listen out for my DCs kittens tend to sleep out on the landing and come in when they want fussing or food.

I don’t think it occurred to me to restrict where the kitten went, but the breeder didn’t release them until 13 weeks old. We soon found out how noisy he was at night (a week later got his half sister) so they were confined downstairs, which means living room and kitchen diner, plus access initially to a litter tray and now a cat flap. This has worked well and no 4.30am breakfast calls! Having a second kitten also helped a lot in terms of occupying them both.