Scheduled Feeding- Cats acting crazy!

Within the last year I have been very diligent about feeding my cats on a schedule. They were definitely getting overweight with the freefeeding. And one of my cats (I have 4 cats) has an issue with crystals in his urine and needs to be on prescription food. So he must be separated from the others. They are all eating wet food now too. But they are driving me crazy. First thing in the morning they are on me waking me up, running under my feet wanting food. (this is 5 AM.....right when I get up)They act like they are starving! This happens at night as well. I feed them around 530 PM) And they only do it to me (probably because my husband does not feed them). They also beg now when we eat dinner. The begging behavior is more recent. They are definitely not being underfed, I dont understand what the problem is! I've thought about leaving a small amount of dry out as a snack, but unfortunately I cannot do that because of the cat that is on prescription food and my dogs would probably get to it.

Any ideas? By the way I have tried feeding them more and that does not do anything. Basically each cat gets a can of food a day (1/2 in AM, 1/2 in PM).

You are not feeding enough. Make sure you read the labels and see what it says to feed for the cats weight. Also make sure you are feeding premium so they are getting all of their nutrients. You can eat fast food and soon after be hungry, but if you eat something nutritionally sound, you will have your fill.

I've added a 3rd meal before we go to bed. They get 1/8 of a cup of food right before bed which ends up being about 10 PM and that usually takes care of morning begging--except on the weekends when meowmy and daddy don't want to serve breakfast at 7AM like on weekdays!!

Leslie

Do you feed them in the morning as soon as you get up? If so they will relate you getting up to them being fed. And then they will hassle you earlier and earlier to get up and feed them. Try to wait a while if you can so that they don't develop an association between you getting out of bed and meal time.

I feed 3 meals a day. The first meal is in the morning before I go to work (about 7am) but I don't feed them first thing. I get up, shower and dress, clean the litter tray, make my packed lunch for work and then feed them Their second meal is when I get in from work (I leave that in an auto feeder if I'm going to be late home) so that can be any time between 4-5.30pm and then they get fed again before bed (usually about 11pm but if I'm up later I will delay it until 12.

Of course, Mosi still wakes me early for play, but you can't win them all!