Begging for food?

A little over a week ago, I adopted my first pets. They are 2 littermates, who were too young to be taken from their mother (were 6 weeks old). They have been adjusting well and are already running all over their new home, but the smaller of the two is begging for food. It can be anything from meatballs to ramen noodles. If you have it, and she can smell it, she comes running and crying every few seconds until you give her some. My boyfriend and I, however, do not feel that this is a behavior we'd like to encourage, so we don't feed her when she does this.

I was told I should treat them as if I'm their mother and scruff them and hiss when they do something bad, which is what I've been doing when this occurs, but it doesn't seem to help.

What should I do? Got no idea, never owned a cat before.

Please feed him as often as possible for now (though try to stick to baby cat food). There will be loads of time later on to establish a better routine, but he's too young now to 'learn' one anyway (or much of anything else) and his need for comfort (at his mother's tummy) far overrides any self-discipline anyhow. I have a similar (now 1 yr old) cat, who I got from a shelter and who'd never lived anywhere else. They could not afford to feed the cats as well as we might, or as often, and it's taken a long time for him to stop behaving as if food were literally the only thing in the whole world to think about (and he's still not completely over it). Right now your kitty is mostly an appetite with some fur attached, not nearly enough brain power to train, so you might as well reassure him with smaller bits of food divided up more often, than expect him to go for long stretches without.

How often and what are you feeding them now? You should free feed the kittens up to about 4 months old, then start slowly putting them on scheduled meals.

I agree with both of the above posts. It is also not surprising that the smaller one seems more into food. He wants to catch up with his bigger sibling.
Cats are great about eating only what they need to eat unless they've been starved or are bored. They're also very smart about learning what it is expected of them but more at a later stage in their lives.

You have gotten good advice.

They are free fed their dry food and I have been giving them canned food in the mornings and evenings. Between the two, they polish off almost an entire can each time. She's not starving, and the only time my boyfriend and I gave people food to her, she ate it until her stomach was so full, it looked like she was going to burst. They both have plenty of their own food, and don't have to go without food if they choose not to. As soon as the smell of people food is around her, she starts crying (we've named her Piggy) about every 2 seconds. She paces back and forth in front of you crying over and over until you feed her some of what you have. If you try to put her away from the food, she cries and comes right back. Plenty of kitten food available, just seems to want people food.

Then I would put them in a separate room with the door closed till you are done eating.

She's just a tiny baby really now, and can't possibly really know anything but that something smells good. Do keep her (and the other) away when you eat because it's obviously driving them crazy.