overly loving kitten

We recently adopted a mother cat and her three kittens who are about 4 months old. One of the kittens is the sweetest I have ever known, but the problem is in the middle of the night or very early in the morning. He sleeps with me and if I roll over he will start rubbing his mouth all over my face, sometimes covering my nose, and he will flip and flop across my neck, on my face, on my head, etc. I will push him away because sometimes I can't breathe, but he keeps doing it until he finally goes to sleelp. This is really getting annoying and keeping me awake. Anyone have this happen before? What does it mean? How can I stop it? I love him so much and don't want to fuss at him, but there is a limit. I might add that we already had three cats when we took in the mother and three kittens, now Mom has had 6 more kittens that are 3 weeks old. They are all in our house!! I may be going cat crazy!

He thinks you are his mommy and he is seeking the same attention he got from his mom. The question is, do you want him to stop doing it forever, or just stop doing it so often?

Also, does your family plan to keep all these cats forever, i.e. your 3 cats, plus the 4 that you just got, and also the current 6 kittens?

I am just asking because if this loving kitten will end up in another home, you don't want to teach him not to do this in case someone else will like it.

Anyhow, what I would do is get your kitten a heating pad set on a low setting, and get a piece of fleece or fur and shape a donut blanket around it, making a little separate sleeping area so the kitten feels similar to how it was with its mom and littermates. And I would have him sleep there for a while, and if necessary I would put him in a separate small room at night for a few days until he gets used to sleeping through the night without his mommy.

Then I would try reintroducing him to your room with his new little bed and heating pad and fleece/fur donut.

Thanks for the advice. We are going to keep the little lovey-dovey, but will have him neutered. The other two are another matter, one is a female and she is helping Mama Kitty take care of the newborns. She is the baby sitter when Mama comes down stairs for a break. She is so cute the babies even try to nurse her. We have found her nursing Mama, though, and she is as big as her mother. The other one is untouchable. These three were born outside in my neighbor's storage shed, we didn't even know they were there until one day we saw them out playing. We had been feeding the mother, so she eventually brought them over. We managed to trap them inside and started getting to know them. The little male let us pick him up pretty soon, but the third one (we call Jet because he runs across the floor and won't let anyone touch him) is so skittish he hides if you look at him/her! We don't quite know what to do. We plan to try to get him to go into the carrier and take him to the vet for surgery. As to the new 6, what in the world will we do, we have become so attached in their 3 weeks of life, I don't know if we can give them away. I refuse to take them to the shelter, if we can't find good homes. Everybody will get snipped though! We love all our kitties so much it will be hard to part with any of them, but we can't afford to feed and give proper vet care.

You are such an angel for taking care of these little ones! Hang in there and please do keep us updated (with photos if you can!) with how they are. Congrats on being a great kitty rescuer.

I recently rescued a kitten who does many of the same things. At first it's sweet but breathing and sleeping are sort of important around here too. Since I don't like my cats in my face while I'm asleep, I've sought a long-term solution. If he's mildly bothersome, I pick him up and put him at the foot of the bed. Then I rub him until he lays down and relaxes. When he's really active, I put him in the floor. Sometimes I have to put him on the floor about 5 consecutive times but eventually he finds something else to play with. It's tough losing sleep but the early lessons pay off in the long run and they really will grow out of a lot of their nighttime activity.

When Mia was 4-6 months old, she would occasionally wake me up at 2 am, purring in my face, rubbing on me, searching for something in the crevice of my neck...I think she finally got the hint after being tossed to the floor a few times. Sounds harsh, but she got the hint.

Originally Posted by SIS0209

Everybody will get snipped though!

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That's great to hear You should think about getting the boy and girl done ASAP, girls can go into heat at 4 months and you don't want her mating with her brother.

My boy Demetri somewhat grew out of sleeping across my face, he only does it sometimes now instead of everyday.