Have held off long enough...

I have been really reluctant to post about this because I feel as though I am betraying my sweet baby girl in some way
My little angel Nismo who by day is the most affectionate, playful, dainty little lovely girl, is causing Mark and I major stress during the night.
She's always been playful at night and we used to be able to sleep through it but recently it's getting us both down.
We only moved house a few weeks ago but it started long before that.
She jumps on us, climbs under the covers and bites us, at times quite hard - something she NEVER does during the day, hits the blinds off the window, eats my hair, claws my head, scratches the wallpaper off, knocks pictures over...the list of noisy naughtiness goes on.
If we shut her out she will throw herself at the door, scratch the door - to the point of damaging it, claw the carpet so that she actually lifts it and scream blue murder.
She's like a totally different cat. She's now 13 months old and is spayed so I don't know why she's behaving like this.
She knows exactly what she's doing aswell. I have started having to turn lights on at 4am and at times have even fed them at 4am to see if that is what she wants.
We play all evening and she has taken to the new house so well. I suppose Im just wondering what we can do to stop this bad behaviour? We are being woken up on average 7 or 8 times a night and I am really struggling to function.
What do you all think? As I type this she is lying curled up and my feet purring so loud I can actually hear her. Hard to imagine her turning into a gremlin in a few hours!!!

I feel your pain - because Davidson is getting into this mode as well
He's fine during the day, but around 3AM, he'll start acting that way - he'll claw at the walls, meow SO loud that I'm sure he's woken the neighbors, climbed up on us, licking my face - so I'll cuddle with him, but nope, thats not what he wants - he has food/water - I hope you get a lot of response on this, because I'd like to know what to do as well! We get woken up about 3-4 times a night because of him

Phenom was like that as a young girl. She has since grown out of it but Phantom has quickly filled the night time crazy cat position. We have gotten to the point where they are not allowed in our bedroom at night. The vaccum trick seems to work for people. Run the cord under the door and keep the vacuum outside your bedroom and leave it in the on position. When the kitty goes crazy plug it in for a few seconds. I hope you find a cure quickly!

Wow! I'm always amazed by posts like this that their kitty is a nighttime maniac because I swear I have never had these problems and with 10 out of my 13 under the age of one you'd think i'd have some issues I couldn't imagine having to deal with this I think Brandi's idea of the vacuum is a good one, that's been suggested before too. Either my cats are all angels, yeah right or I am a seriously deep sleeper

she is a teenager and my 14 month cat is doing similar things but not as wickedly and maybe i am just such a sound sleeper that I dont hear her. Our bedroom is pretty large and consists of the bedroom, master bath and two sizable dressing rooms. she has plaenty of places to jump and play with toys scattered on the floor. I also hide little pellets of dry food in places so she can hunt during the night. and I run HEPA filter which covers maller noises. all paper things have to be put away ( books in drawers) because she will shred them at night. and lately she has started digging at the thermal weave blanket because the loops are fun to tug, so I have the blanket itself encased between two sheets. so cat proof the room, add some cover noise and try the hidden dry kibble ( in shoes, the back of shelves etc. that might help. when really desperate i have gently back leg and she leaves the bed right away. Good luck in life with a teenager.

I know its difficult. 4 of mine were going through this stage all at the same time. I finally adjusted to them having the night time crazies, but it didnt come easy. I can remember the lack of sleep and the longing for a full nights sleep. I didnt know what to do, so I did nothing to deter it. But they did grow out of it.

I started calling them to bed with me at night and surprisingly they would all come and curl up in their spots. To this day I say, "Lets go nite nite" and they all come running and get in the bed.

Hopefully, Nismo will outgrow it soon and you will be able to sleep again

And I thought my cat was annoying prowling around at night. Guess I wont complain anymore.

Maybe you can try to keep your cat awake all day in hopes it'll sleep at night.

I don't know if you would be open to this idea, but in my house, with kittens of varying ages all running around the house at oh-Gawd-thirty AM, an extra-large dog crate is the answer for us. The babies go into the crate when we go to bed, after they have had a nice long play session and a full tummy of warmed canned kitten food. They normally sleep the entire night through.

Maybe you could do something similar with your little one? The crate would confine her so that she cannot throw herself into the door nor can she damage the carpet. It is roomy enough to place a small litterbox in there along with a snuggly bed. There are little stainless steel bowls called "Coop Cups" which hang on the sides of the crate for food and water too! It might be something you could at least try ... hope it helps!

I agree with gayef. I had a friend whose cat was similar to yours. So she started to lock the cat up in a large dog crate that has food/water and a litter box in it, lined with a blanket on bottom and a couple of toys. They put her in there about 15 min. before they go to bed and then close the door and put a blanket over it. Since they're cat would yowl in response to this, they put the crate in a bathroom far from their bedroom and closed the door. It took a little while but now that she's not crazy anymore they don't lock her in there anymore, but she still goes and sleeps in there, it's "her room".

Thanks for your support everyone
I like the dog crate idea but unfortunately I could not bring myself to do that. Nismo is over a year old and to suddenly tell her she cannot play with her brother at night would not go down well at all. Plus I don't think I could bare to hear her cry. Our house is not huge so we'd be able to hear her.
We are keeping her awake for as long as possible in the evening, which isn't too hard right now with so many visitors in to see the house, who of course want to play with her because she's such an But unfortunately it does not make her sleep any longer at night.

Gosh, this can be stressful. Danny sometimes gets like this too. Oddly enough, I find that if I turn the light on and read for even 10 minutes (to myself or out loud to him lol!) he settles down next to me to sleep. I find I get more sleep even with so decided an interruption than I do when I try to ignore him. Best of luck!
Catfriend