Sleep seriously disrupted by furballs!

I'm at my wits end with my 2 Oriental pussycats. They are brother & sister, almost 4 years old. Freddie has been neutered and Ripley has been spayed. They are indoor cats.

Every night when I go to bed, they (especially Ripley) start prowling around the flat and yowling. Climbing over me, chasing each other, generally causing havoc. Eventually they settle down, only to repeat the entire process at 5am. I know that they are typical of the breed in being very active and playful. And I love them for it most of the time!

I live in a 1 bedroom flat where the only rooms that have doors are the bathroom and bedroom, so it isn't practical to shut them out. I have tried it and they whine and scratch at the bedroom door until I relent. They can keep this up for hours.

I have a massive cat tree, which they use, and have tried playing with them when I get home with a feather on a stick etc. but it doesn't help at all. My sleep is being interrupted and it's making me seriously cranky!

Does anyone have any ideas that might help?

Cheesypaws

I have little experience with SIA/ORI cats but all I know is you are right hyperactivity is a common factor of the breed.

Have you tried ping pong balls? You could put one or two of those in the hall way/corridor before you go to bed and let them release their energy that way if the feathers aren't cutting it. I wish you luck in finding a solution.

Mine are Ocicats, which originated from Aby/Siamese they are very, very active.

I make sure to play before work, after work and before bed. Followed by a meal before bed and they settle down very well.

They like pom poms for fetching, laser pointer and DaBird. All make them run and jump, plus they get some time in the garden several times a week.

We have quite a few scratching posts/trees of various heights and tons of toys for when I'm at work.

I know EXACTLY how you feel! Exept Mitzi enjoys scratching the walls all night, when she has 2 perfectly good scratching posts

We have bought this spray bottle called "scratch no more" for cats. That usually does the trick.


Do you let them outside?? That way they could go out and play and then when they come in they will be shattered!

Thanks for these tips. I recently split from my husband and am now renting a small flat with no garden. He didn't want the cats and it was no contest anyway, really!

A few weeks ago I did take them to a friend's place to run around in her garden, but they were very unsure about this and when I took them home, Ripley didn't recognise her brother and hissed at him for an entire day! I can't win!

I do feed them as soon as I get home from work (7pm) and then they sleep. Maybe that is part of the problem. I will try to hold off on feeding them until my bedtime, if I can stand the wailing!

I will also try a few new toys, I don't have a laser pointer so that could be fun.

Thanks again.

Is there a communal garden area in the block of flats? You could harness train and walk them if there's a space.
They probably won't run, but would still be out exploring and being active.

If you have a balcony, enclose it with some netting and sit out with them. They could sit out harnessed if you can't enclose - just a bit of a change in scenery for them with new smells etc.

And if you can hang a bird feeder by a window, we have one near the kitchen window and they love watching the birds.

Unfortunately there is no communal garden, only a strip of grass next to the road, and I have no balcony. They do love to sit in the window and chatter at the birds, a bird feeder would send them loopy I think!

Originally Posted by cheesy.paws

a bird feeder would send them loopy I think!

Click to expand...

From your description, they're loopy already.

Haha that is very true

I would buy a good set of ear plugs. Good luck.

Good luck with this! I adopted a male less than a years ago from the shelter (he's 5), and he quite literally doesn't like me to be in bed! He wants "us" to be up at 3 am, and in order to accomplish this, he starts bothering me about 1:30 am. A vet who is a behaviorist told me to just "ignore" him, but he's the most persistent animal in the world. (By the way, I've posted about this and received similar advice and tried EVERYTHING, but he's still at it).

What makes it worse is that I'm retired, so ideally I could nap during the day, but I can only do that if I manage to match my nap to his. If he finds me asleep, he apparently thinks it's his responsibility to make sure I wake up!

Yes, I could ban him from the bedroom, but here's the problem. He's a shelter cat and I don't know his history. He is incredibly attached, following me around the house most of the day. When I tried to keep him out of the bedroom, he cried so piteously that I couldn't do that to him.

I'm about to leave tomorrow on a four-day vacation and all I can think of is getting some sleep while I'm gone!

At 14 years old my cat still acts the same way your two do some nights. Fortunately it has decreased as she has aged, but there are still nights that I get no sleep. I call this her "night Madness", lol. She also wakes me up every morning as soon as my alarm starts sounding she knocks it off the table and takes over by meowing in my face. I find that when I give her a small can of wet food right before bed that she settles down and will sleep mostly through the night. Good Luck!