Sleeping W/ Zoe: Can't Sleep!

kuntrykitty

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I have just very recently started keeping a 5-6 week old kitten, Zoe, inside the house. Only at nighttime though; in the morning she goes out to be with her siblings and momma all day, and I bring her in periodically to play during the day.
Now I have already read links like the "Night Crazies" but I'm not sure if it'd work in my situation. If I leave Zoe in her crate (she has a cat nip toy, a pom-pom type thing she LOVES, a stuffed mouse, a towel and a t-shirt), she meows constantly. She's in the kitchen, and even if I leave the radio on, she feels lonely. Now at bedtime, she eventually goes to sleep after about 10 minutes of crying. But about 3:00-3:30, she wakes up and cries. So Mom or I will let her out to eat, potty, play. But when we put her back in, she will NOT STOP. So last night (or this morning I guess) at four, I brought her into my room to sleep with me. (At bedtime I tried this but she refused to stop playing.) She pounced and played but eventually decided to fall asleep. (BTW: she refuses to sleep anywhere but as close to ME as she can. She sleeps in the crook of my neck which REALLY tickles, on my waist if I'm laying on my side, me chest, by shoulder, etc.) Every now and then I'd have to roll over and she'd get resituated and go back to sleep. This lasted an hour, until 5:00. But I was so proud of her, she actually let me sleep twenty minutes of that hour! Then I guess she got bored and awoke me with a swat to the nose.
Anyway... I could leave her in the crate and just have her get used to it, but I want her to bond with me, and I think she's more comforted when she sleeps with me too. My problem is, she won't stop playing! And I am a bit scared of it, because she pounces on my ear and bites it, to which I respond with a firm "NO", or she'll scratch my face, etc. It kinda hurts.
What exactly should I do so she'll sleep in my bed with me all through the night. (Well, except for like once when I should get up to let her eat a little and maybe potty.) She won't leave the bed, which is good. But how can I get her to learn that nighttime is sleep time, not playtime? I have no problem waking up at 5:00, i's 3:30 and 4:00 I don't like! I know she's nocturnal, but she's not old enough to where she can browse the house alone and do her own thing...
 

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Well, hmm, she obviously likes cuddling with you, and is bonding with you, so.. perhaps you can build those little steps.. anything as long as she can get up and down them.. so that she can leave the bed to potty, or to eat, as the case may be. I'd bring a toy to the bedroom.

The one thing I learned was make sure there was nothing sitting around that she could get into and make noise. IOW, if I went shopping and came home and put the bag in my room until I could get around to hanging it all up... inevitably they'd get into it and I'd hear crinkle crinkle crinkle pounce crinkle throughout the night. The other thing I did was play with them as hard as they can play (realizing that she might be a little less agile and quick than mine are...I made mine zip zip zip all around, running them about until they were tired out).. for a good 15 or 20 minutes. Might not take as long for her since she's still little. *Then* give her some food. This usually works for getting mine to nap.

As far as getting her to sleep all through the night.. I'm not sure what to tell you on that. None of mine do. Noel gets up on the bed, sleeps for a while, snuggles, gets up and does her thing whenever she needs to, and then returns to the same spot when she's ready. The kittens chase my feet, but Joyeux usually plops down on them to "hold" them in place and often falls asleep there. Pogue will come up and fall asleep next to my head or on my neck. But the first few nights, they always went exploring and it was a little less peaceful than one could wish for.

Now, with regard to her batting you on the nose or trying to wake you up.... if tapping her and correcting her isn't working... try completely ignoring her. Ignoring them has worked with two of mine, and bedtime behavior. If what they're doing doesn't get a response... they'll try a different tactic. Ultimately, they're looking for a response. You may also try hissing at her. I have to say though, ignoring has been the most effective thing I've tried with mine to date. And never ever give them what they want following behavior you want them to stop. I can't remember now where I read it but..there was an article or a story on cat behavior.. and they said it's a little different between a cat and a dog, whereas, a dog does something, gets rewarded or not rewarded/punished and associates it with the thing it just did. A cat.. for instance.. here's a scenario.. you come home from work, you walk in the door, you hang up your coat. You go to the kitchen. Your cat jumps up on the counter and meows at you. You scold him/her, push off the counter, tell him NO!, proceed to fix his/her dinner, give the dinner to him/her, and pet him. In the cat's mind.. jumping up on the counter is what triggered getting fed and getting pet. I think the scenario had a few more actions between the counter and actually getting fed, though. It seems to me if she's waking you up with a swat to the nose... even if you're saying NO, and correcting her.. but then you're awake and paying attention to her.. it's still effective to swat you on the nose. You might even consider waking up, and immediately putting her on the floor when she's bad, but that might also trigger a pattern too. Then she might start swatting you when she wants down off the bed.

I'd venture to say, though, that the first three or four nights you spend with her, you're going to be awake a good portion of the night. It'll take a few days for her to settle into a pattern. I do also think putting up some sort of "steps" so she can get up and down by herself is crucial.. and putting a tiny litter box or something in there so she's got somewhere to potty other than your bed. Oh, and be sure to show her where the food, water, and litter box are in the bedroom, before you put her up on the bed..I'd show her the steps too, and show her how to use them, by maybe taking a little feather or teaser or something and drawing it along so that she "uses" the steps. They learn pretty quick.

If you end up keeping her in the crate... consider bringing in a litter mate to keep her company for the next few weeks. I'd say it's a good bet that her problem is that she's by herself.

Anyway, I hope that wasn't too long and was somewhat helpful.
 

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I think it's just a matter of being patient, (that probably means losing some sleep too) until she matures a bit. To the best of my knowledge all baby kitties want to play when you go to bed and if you can just ignore them and not move if you can help it, they'll get bored and settle. It will take some time and patience - at least it did with our 2. Bijou sleeps with me and doesn't keep me awake or wake me. Mind you, I'm not a very light sleeper - takes a lot to wake me once I'm asleep. Hmmm, maybe he's walking all over me in the night and I don't even know it.
 
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kuntrykitty

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CatsAreBetter: Your advice was very helpful, thank-you! I agree, she is lonely in the crate. So she sleeps with me from now on.
Now I do not mind her waking up at night and such. What I am concerned about is that when she wakes up, she'll wake me up. But as you said, she'll probably swat or pounce or do something to me to wake me up. I guess she can sense I woke up, but I'll just pretend to still be sleeping so she doesn't get the response she was looking for. Surely she'll get bored eventually and just go back to sleep.
I tried the steps; actually, it was a ramp. It was the lid to a large rubbermaid container going from the floor, at a not-too-steep angle, to the top of the bed. I put a towel over the top so that it was easy to climb. I put the litterbox near the bottom as well as food and water. But she wouldn't go up or down! She knew how, but she wouldn't... My best bet is that when she has to potty or is hungry, she'll start yelling in my ear, demanding attention. Of course, if every time she yells I respond, she'll scream every time she wants something! I'll try steps instead and see if she'll use them again. And when she is awake in the middle of the night, pouncing and playing, I'll just ignore her and when she lays down, I'll pet and praise her for that so she remembers when she calms down, she gets pleasant attention.
I'll bring her in about an hour earlier tonight. I'll show her how to use the steps, where the litterbox and food/water is. Then I will play with her till she can't play no more! (Trust me, you should see Zoe, Kaleia, and Chubs playing, they have TONS of energy, but she is small, she should wear out from 10-15 minutes.) And then I'll feed her and go to bed.
How does that sound? Thank-you again soooo much! Any other replies are indeed welcome, I appreciate any bit of input!


Yosemite: I'm not very light either!
But if she is crying, I'll wake up due to subconscious concern. I will try to be patient, hopefully in about 3 or 4 more nights, she will have caught on. It must be very scary and confusing (and exciting too!) to have all this going on. Thankyou for your input!
 

catsarebetter

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Just give it a few days and see how it goes. I think you'll see a difference when she figures out a routine.
 
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kuntrykitty

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Just like humans; if you move to a new house, with weird stuff everywhere, lots of new activites, unfamiliar foods, and none of your regular friends... well, it's plain to see why she gets overly excited! I'll definitely dig this thread back up and let ya'll know how she is doing tomorrow.
Thank-you again for ya'll's support, I can't tell you how much it means to me! I feel so much better when I can refer to somebody who knows about this stuff, keeps me from stressing!
 

catsarebetter

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Hehe, well, all I can offer you is what's worked with mine (or what absolutely has not...incorrigible, they are).. but hopefully mine aren't entirely unique and it'll help.
If I ever had to inform the five of them that they surely are not the only cats in the universe.. I'd have a mutiny on my hands.
 

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When I had Tianna (Carolcat's little one) for a couple of days before her flight to California, my hubby made steps up to our bed out of pillows and blankets. Tia fit into my hand so she was pretty tiny and our bed must have seemed really high to her. She had no difficulty going up or down and I'm assuming the downs were easier when landing on something soft. Tia was such a little sucky baby too. She wouldn't even eat unless I sat beside her on the floor while she ate and as soon as she ate she wanted to be picked up. Carol said she was the same with her - she called her velcro-kitty.


If my hubby was on the bed, she'd lay across his neck if I wasn't in the bedroom. The little ones seem to need to be so close to us physically - it's wonderful.
 
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kuntrykitty

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That's so sweet Yosemite!
I know, I love it whenever she finally calms down and crawls up to me. She just puts her little face right on my arma and goes to sleep. Every few minutes, she sneaks a little closer until I can feel her breath on my face.

I'm not sure what to make the steps out of... wouldn't pillows be kind of hard to climb? We'll see... I cleaned my room today (compeltely: nothing on the floor, desk and dresser completely cleared off, vacuumed, dusted) so now I can let her down on the floor without worrying some evil dirt laundry monster will confiscate her!
I think what I'll do is put her on the floor, then crawl into bed. She'll start crying for me, and I'll call to her, that way she can actually go up the steps by herself, and actually has used them. Thankyou for all the helpful advice and tips!
 
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kuntrykitty

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Well, lastnight was better than the last two were...
At 8:00 I brought her in (I felt immensely guilty, as she was having so much fun with Kalli and Chub, playing in the flowerbeds) and gave her to my mom to hold. Then I put the hamster in her ball and the dog in his crate (yes, a dog, cat, and hamster in one room, and each one doesn't know the other exists) and got Zoe. Then I played with her in my room for 35-40 minutes. It takes forever for her to wear out! She still wasn't completely tired yet. But I crawled into bed anyway and she messed around for a minute and curled up with me. (We got into bed about 9:20.) Then I woke up, and I had been in such a deep sleep, I thought we'd slept till like 3:00 am, I was so excited! Then I looked at the clock... 10:17 pm. Oh, crap. This was gonna be a looooong night! So anyway, I went back to sleep and woke up at 12:00. Tyler (my bro) had turned my light on and was cuddling Zoe. He said I was about to roll over onto her so he took her. She would have moved and gone back to sleep, maybe for another hour! But oh well. So, she wouldn't go back to sleep. So I played with her for 20 minutes, she showed no signs of slowing down. Well I was exhausted and sleep is a neccessity, so I put her in her crate with her toys and in the kitchen by the radio, which I turned on to keep her 'company'. She meowed for about 2 or 3 minutes, then I guess she fell asleep, and so did I. I woke up again at 4:00 am and she was crying. Tyler was asleep on the couch, and I guess Mom and Dad were sleeping too deep to hear her. So I brought her back in. She played with my canopy thingy for a while, walked over me several times, then laid down (finally, where I could roll over without disturbing her!) and went to sleep. We slept till 6:00...
She went poop twice and potty once in her litterbox; once she just hopped down off the bed, went to her litterbox, and went by herself! I was so proud!
I got about 5.5 hours of sleep, which I'm sure will improve with time. She just has the kitten crazies, but I do hope she settles down soon, I hate sleepless nights!
When she gets in a playful mood, she pounces on my face! It kind of hurts, but I try to ignore it. I just pick her up, firmly say "NO" and set her down elsewhere and she plays with something else.
Also, she refuses to play without me! She'll eat, drink water, and use the litterbox without me there, but she is used to playmates and won't play by herself. Oh well...
So all in all, it was a fairly succesful night! I made steps for her to get up to the bed, but she only used them to go down, she would not go up them. What she did was try to go from bare floor to bed in one jump! She couldn't quite make it. But there was blanket (a fleece one I put on my lap when we're playing so that she won't attack my toes and pajamas) on the floor, piled about 3 inches high. She stepped on that and jumped up! So I will put away the steps and leave a pillow there at night for her to use to jump up when she wishes.
It seemed like hre goal lastnight was to keep me up! But she's just a kitten, I understand. She woke me up soooo sweet this morning too. She crawled onto my neck and put her little paws on my face, and started purring right in my ear. How sweet!
 

catsarebetter

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It'll get better, although they will always go exploring the room...if she won't play with toys that aren't powered by you, we have this little track mouse... let me find a link to it... it's better than the one with the ball in the track.. that's the one with the "scratcher" cardboard in the middle... I'll find links to both so you can see the difference...

Okay, here's the one that isn't as good... http://www.petsmart.com/global/produ...N=2033745&Ne=2 sorry for the long link.. the ball in it moves well, but doesn't move "fast". And..it takes a lot more work from the cat to play with it. Mine have this one and the other I'm about to link you to, and vastly prefer the other one.

*This* one, is great. http://www.petsmart.com/global/produ...45&Ne=2#detail

Mine will play for the longest time with this one, and all of them like it.. and they all have different styles so there are very few that they will all play with. The mouse moves very fast, it'll go really fast with just a tiny bat of the paw, unlike the track ball toy (above).. it's fairly quiet (the other one isn't), and usually once you teach them, they'll play with that one for the longest time, or, at least mine do...

Our PetSmart carries it, but I think it's more expensive in the store. If you have an option to have someone at your house order it and have it sent, I would do that. I'm not sure if you have a PetSmart near you. Their price is $6.95 for shipping and just under $11 for the toy.

Yeah, she'll keep you up for a bit, but she'll settle down some eventually, and probably end up sleeping through most of the night (well, at least she'll not keep you awake most of the night, hopefully)..

If you can get her jumping, as opposed to running, she'll tire out quicker, although I don't know how well she jumps yet, or if you can get her racing up and down something, like a set of steps or a cat tree, that will wear her out quicker too. And one other observation.. if you're playing with her in your room, you might want to play with her before you go to your room, that way she doesn't associate "bedroom" with "playtime". You know, I'm just suggesting that... I don't know if they do that or not, but it seems to be a bit of a pattern with mine, depending on what activity we do in each room.

It's great that she's getting up and down by herself! They learn so quick, don't they? Amazing little creatures!
 
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kuntrykitty

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Thankyou for the tip on that track mouse! I am waiting for the link to load right now and will definitely look into getting it!


She has been exploring the room, and she's having fun! the only thing I blocked up was a bookcase sitting caddy-corner, she was crawling behind it and God only knows what's back there! I blocked it with some books and it keeps her out.

She doesn't have a scratching post yet because they were like $15! And we can make one easy. I'm gonna get some PVC pipe and have my Dad bolt it down to a heavy piece of plywood. Then we'll wrap the pipe in carpet (we're gonna go by a store in town on Wednesday and get some probably for free from some store that has some leftovers) and staple or use heavy glue to attatch it; we'll put carpet on the wood base too.

Well, see, I kind of want her to stay in my room so that she won't go exploring the rest of the house while I'm asleep! So I play with her on the opposite side of the room of my bed. Cats are so smart, I think she'll associate the actual bed with sleep and the floor with play. What do you think? 'Cause if she wants to play in the middle of the night, I don't want her running off...

I hope she gets better! I miss my sleep!
 

catsarebetter

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Well, when I first get a kitten, I usually keep them "locked" in my room for the first few nights. If she wants to get down and play in the middle of the night and has a toy, then she'll likely just get down and play with that toy or two... after they get in the habit of sleeping with me, which... for mine was about a week.. then I just crack my door and they can come and go as they please. Then I generally move the litter box out and, it's supposed to be common practice to move it slowly, but as it is I have a litter box in the hallway outside of my room (about 15 feet from my door) and I've never had a problem just picking it up and removing it. Mine have all just "graduated" to the big kitty litter box with no problems. I guess I've been fortunate.

If you've got a big room, which yours is probably much larger than mine (mine is the size of a matchbox.., and once you have the bed in it, there's not even room for the matches)... then it might be enough space that she won't automatically think it's play time. She may not ever associate it regardless. It was just a thought. But then, if you play with her in your room, and she associates sleep and playtime, then she may not feel the need to "leave" the room to play, and depending on what you want, she might just stay in there all night with no problems. Mine still try to play in my room at night, but it's because whoever had my house before we moved in, had the room I sleep in set up for daycare, and the walls have a chair rail with fake grass and fake flowers in it (which the cats just go nuts for)... so they're always trying to find a way to get to the flowers and steal them.

But anyway, try it and see. Either way, it's going to be a bit of a ritual, so she's probably going to associate one of her play times with going to bed, but I think it's good to tire her out.

With the scratching post... get a little bag of catnip, and take the catnip and sprinkle it on the carpeted places... then take your fingers and really rub it in so that it gets down into the fibers. It is going to get all over the area that you're doing this in too, but a lot of it should get into the fibers. This will encourage her to scratch the post. Um, let's see.. the base should be fairly wide, so that when she "pulls" on the post it won't topple. The post itself should be tall enough that after she grows some she'll still be able to stretch her body out to scratch. That's one of the things they like to do. It's awesome that you guys can make your own. Oh, another option since you're making your own is to get some actual wood. Like a log or something (no bugs included, of course) and nail that onto the plywood. They like to scratch wood, and if you wanted you could even attach the carpet to that. You know, you can probably be pretty creative with it and still get away with being inexpensive to make it.. and the more diversity that Zoe has on a cat tree/scratching post .. the more she'll use it. If you've got the time and space, take a look at some of the trees online and if one looks possible, you could make a project out of it. A lot of them are no more than flat pieces connected to round pieces.

Anyway, that's a little off topic, but.. yeah, I think you're doing the right things for little Zoe. And if something doesn't seem to be working, try a different tactic.
 
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kuntrykitty

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That's a great idea for the scratching post! There's no problem finding a small log. I'll just cut it in half and nail or screw it to the base! And I'll use your catnip idea too...
And I saw some of these on the Internet, they were like 3 for $10.99 and I thought 'shoot, that'll be easy!' Just sew little 10 inch long, 1/2 inch wide tubes, and stuff it with half polyfill and half catnip- fun toy!
And I would make her a cat tree, however, I do not have the room. I have a bed, nightstand, keyboard, dresser, booksheld, large hamster cage (it's about 3 feet long and sits on an old piano bench), desk, large dog cage, not to mention Zoe's litterbox and crate! But there's still plenty of floorspace, just nowhere to put one of them where it's out of the way. But what I will do is make her that scratching post with the log, put a platform on top for her to climb onto, and attacth a toy so when she's scratching she can play too. And I am going to look at PetCo to see if they have that toy you suggested. If not, I'll just take out $20.00 and order it online. We don't have a PetSmart anywhere near us...
Yeah, I'll just leave the door shut. At night I'll play with her for another half hour before bed. Then I'll go to bed and start reading. If she wants to sleep, great. If not, I'll let her play on the floor. But do you think if she starts meowing and walking around, wanting me to play with her, I should? I think tonight I should just leave her alone so she learns that at night, she might as well just sleep, cause I'm not paying any attention to her!
So should I just ignore that? I think I should. She can get up and down by herself, and I am going to desperately try to tolerate her face-pounces. If I ignore her, I think she'll soon learn to leave me alone. If she doesn't want to sleep, fine, but I'm not gonna play with her. I have a poetry performance tomorrow and need my sleep so she'll just have to learn I guess...
 

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Nope, I would definitely not get up and play with her in the middle of the night. I wouldn't scold her if she plays, but in my opinion, definitely do not make yourself a part of the middle of the night play time.

If she's pouncing your face, you could pull a blanket up over your head or put the pillow over it. It makes it a little tougher for her to get to you, although, it may encourage her to play... or it might just completely baffle her. I'd still say no, but just turn away, or otherwise ignore her when she does it. But show her how to play with her toys before you get into bed.. especially if you have the little track mouse toy..

PetCo probably carries it... let me check online to see if it's on their webpage. Okay, they have these three types of track toys on their website, so hopefully they'll have them in the store too. http://www.petco.com/Shop/petco_Prod...7+30+5783.aspx

One of them is similar if not exactly the same as the one I posted earlier, and then one of them looks like it's battery powered.
 
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kuntrykitty

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Omigosh, you are so sweet! *tacklhugs CatsAreBetter* You are my lifesaver! Thankyou again for helping me so much!

If you were me, which one would you get? I probably won't get the really cheap one... What's your opinion? If they don't have it I will have them order it for me. Our PetCo is really small but the manager is really nice and they order anything you want.
And I will definitely not get up at night to play with her. She has food, water, litterbox, toys. If she really wants to play, I'll hang her favorite little toy from the keyboard stand so she can play with it like that. And I'll leave the yarn string, paper and foil wads, and rubber ball out as well. I plan on getting her one of those little balls with a bell in the middle, but that would totally be too loud for night.

But I will definitely get one of those track mouses, thankyou for the fantastic idea!
 

catsarebetter

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No problem... erm, I wouldn't leave string out for her to play with unless you are actively monitoring her. They can (and in the case of Pogue, will) eat it. You have no idea how much stuff I've had to take out of his mouth. If they eat string, it can get tangled in their intestines. No problem with it if you're watching her or you're playing with it... just be sure to put it up when you're done.
sometimes they're just like kids. Hmm, do a search on TCS for aluminum foil.. there was a post about it, or a thread about it, in which someone had a warning about foil, although honestly, it's been a favorite cat toy of my cats at various times in my life.. I honestly can't remember what it was about it, though.. if it was toxic or if they ate it or what.. but I'm sure it's easy enough to find .. I think it was a thread about buying cheap aluminum foil, or it might have been one about using aluminum foil to keep your cats off the counter tops... I'll go look for it here in a minute, but just in case I'm not successful... you know what to look for. I think that'd be fine too, depending on what was said, provided that you're keeping an eye on her. They sure do love to bat it around, though.

If it were me.. this is what I think... the battery powered one is probably way cool, but .. if it's battery powered, you're going to a.) run down the battery pretty quick... my guess is you turn it on and it zips around the track, so it only stops if you turn it off? and b.) battery powered means noise, and probably more noise than the others.

The Cat N Mouse one.. like I said, mine LOVE it. It is one of the toys up there with Da Bird. It is top ranked in this household and I have two Bengals (very hard to entertain constantly) one shy Mau, one aggressive but lazy domestic, and one tiny, sassy Tonkinese who is in to everything.. and they all play with it. I'm thinking you're not going to go wrong with that one, and they can catch it, and bat it in the other direction and it *moves* really fast (which mine LOVE), but they can still catch it. It's virtually silent. It makes a very soft "swish" noise, but it's not even loud enough that it would wake me up and I'm a fairly light sleeper.

The third one, I noticed that they said that the cats can't catch it.. it's been my experience that if they can't ever get close to catching something, they give up. Now, I don't know if they meant that literally or not, so.. It looked pretty neat though. I think I will probably, at some point, get the battery powered one (because the four-footers here aren't spoiled enough) but only to turn on and off when I'm around. It definitely looks like a cool toy.

Oh, just as a side note, the paper wads are fine. Things to watch out for: rubber bands, anything small enough that they can swallow, including pieces of mylar or raffia from cat toys..string, foam bits.. that's all I can think of at the moment.
 
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kuntrykitty

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Okay, I'll go with the Cat'N'Mouse one... Thankyou for your advice!
Oh, I didn't think about that... All she does when I'm around is bat at it and roll around with it, and sometimes she'll take the end in her mouth and parade around like "Look what I got, Mom!". But I would hate for her to eat it, so I'll leave it out. And the foil... she just likes to bat it around, she hates the smell of it...
I think that's okay, I dunno... And I have kitty-proofed my room, it is COMPLETELY clean. She can't get into the hamster food, it's in a tight-lidded tupperware container, there are no wires available for her, nothing else she can climb except the desk, nothing dangerous there. Anyway... thanks again!
Were your kittens ever this hyper as little ones? She's only 6 weeks, but still... Just wanted to see if I have a paticularly hyper-active kitten. How did you cope with it?
 

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I have two very hyper kittens, one is about 10 weeks old (Pogue, the Tonkinese), and one is about 9 months..(Joyeux, a marbled Bengal)..who love to play with the Egyptian Mau (Bagheera, who is three years old on this upcoming Halloween) and the other Bengal (Kahn, who will be three in September). They are super hyper, chase each other from one end of the house to the other and you should them all trying to play with me when I use a cat toy. Kahn does everything with his claws OUT, so you have to keep a two yard distance (long handled toys only.. he nailed me earlier with his claws)...and they play hard. They're my crazy kitties. Here's pics of mine.. Kahn is technically not mine, he's my sisters, but he lives here regardless.

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=129362
 
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kuntrykitty

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Wow! (Waiting for the picture to download.) But do they sleep with you? At first, did they keep you awake and how did you get them not to?!?!

Well, lastnight Zoe went to sleep with me for an hour. Then she woke up and wanted to play and she was yowling and normally I would havejust ignored her and tried to go to sleep. But this afternoon I have a big... thing... lol, rodeo thing, and I needed my sleep, really. So I gave her to Mom. Mom said she let her run around for an hour, and she would go curl up and try to sleep, and mom would wake her up and make her run around some more. Finally, the kitten just crawled in her crate and went to sleep! And she slept all night! So now I know what to do... Just let her run around and do whatever she wants and when she tries to sleep, keep waking her up until she's utterly exhausted! Of course she may still wake me up in bed, but it's a definite start!
And today I'm going by PetCo to pick up that toy!
 
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