Night-time scratching- i can't sleep!

We have 2 cats, Miele and Bip. We close our bedroom door to sleep, every night Bip would start scratching on the bedroom door from around midnight. She would stop then start again. We are unable to get any quality sleep, any idea why she does that? Any suggestions re how to make her stop this habit would be most welcomed. Thanks!

I'll be interested to hear the responses. My oldest cat did that and we tried everything we could think of. Finally we gave up and just opened the door. She has been sleeping on our bed for over a year now and we love it and she's happy. LOL! Good luck and hope somebody has a "cure" for ya!

Originally Posted by KDPW

I'll be interested to hear the responses. My oldest cat did that and we tried everything we could think of. Finally we gave up and just opened the door. She has been sleeping on our bed for over a year now and we love it and she's happy. LOL! Good luck and hope somebody has a "cure" for ya!

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It's true -- Sometimes with cats, all you can do is give in!

my cats wil also sit by the door and pine, meow, scratch and push until they get in.
they go right to sleep if I just leave the door open though

I have a similar problem with Carmel yowling at night but I can't leave the door open. My akita puppy is shut in the bedroom with me both to keep her away from the cats so there aren't any accidental injuries and protect the rest of the house from destructive puppy teeth, I have slight allergies to cats so I spend all night awake with breathing problems if they sleep on the bed, and to top it off I already have severe insomnia so adding a cat waking me up several times a night is very bad. You don't realize how important sleep is until you don't get any for 5 days. It's actually enough to be declared mentally handicapped.

Wearing the cats out before bed helps and is usually enough for mine. Play with them for awhile preferably with lots of chasing things. Also trying to avoid having them sleep all afternoon or evening is more difficult but very useful. If I let her Carmel will sleep off and on from noon to 9pm and then bounce around the house all night yowling at the door out of boredom but if I toss her a new toy or some catnip in the afternoon or early evening she stays up and instead falls asleep around the time I go to bed. Then she doesn't even notice I'm not around. Final solution when everything else fails is to lock her far enough away I don't hear it while trying to get her enough things to keep her busy. I have a finished basement so I have 1 litterbox, a bed, food, and water down there all the time and when Carmel really won't let me sleep I shut her downstairs with some extra toys or catnip.

hmm...i'm not really sure what will help. my kitten use to do that but i can't let him sleep with me. cause he'll jump on the and walk around and snuggle underneath the covers beside me, which is kinda cute but also annoying. so i had to lock him outside. and he would just meow and stick his little paws underneath the door to try to come in. but after doing that for several weeks and my ignoring him, he got tired of it and is happy sleeping out in the hall.

We have this problem. We have never let Bruce and Sheila into our room at night, but still Sheila chirps intermittently outside the door, and scratches the door, waking me (but not my lucky deep-sleeping husband!) up.

Apart from NEVER reacting to their cries for attention, the only other things we have been recommended on this site is to stick double-sided sticky tape onto the door (they hate it on their paws) or to scrunch up aluminium foil and stick it to the door.

This helps us a bit - hope it helps you too!

Bruce&Sheila

this sounds silly but I have in the past taped a pillow to the outside of my door so kitty can't scratch and it also muffles the mews a little

thanks for all suggestions and good to know am not the only one suffering from this problem. will try to find double sided sticky tape wide enough to cover the area where Bip likes to scratch.. in the meantime will it be enough to stick some foil paper on door or does it have to be scrunched up? thanks- any other suggestions welcomed!