Am I harming my kitten?

Hi everyone,

I have a kitten that is 5 weeks old today. from the day she was born I ahve spent 5-10 minutes every day holding, petting and talking to her. I have 10 cats total but have never had a kitten before. She is quarantined from the other cats until she is old enough to come among them safely. About a week ago the kitten started crawling up onto my bed (since she is locked in my bedroom) and sleeping there. Now the only time she will get/stay off of the bed for any time is when she needs to eat. What I am worried about though is the fact that if her mother and I both walk into the room at the same time she will always come to me first rather to her her mother. I am worried that this might hurt the kittens relationship with her mother. Any help or advice here would be greatly appreciated. Oh, another thing of note, if I am not in the room with her she will sleep on my pillow or blanket and if I am in the room she will crawl up onto my shoulder and snuggle herself up against my neck which means that for the last week or so she has gotten quite a bit more than 5-10 minutes a day.


Thank you,
Eric
AKA Elmseeker

As long as the kitten is interacting with mama cat enough for her to socialize the little one (i.e. teach it how to be a cat), I don't think there's any harm in a close human-animal bond. The one thing I would be concerned about, from what you've said, is that the kitten spends a lot of time on your bed. Does that include when you're sleeping? If it does, I'd worry that you might roll over on it in your sleep, which would of course be awful for everyone.

I speak from 1st hand experience that all of your handling and sharing the bed will create the sweetest, most cuddly cat ever!

Me neither think it is any problem with her bonding to you too.

My question is instead, if it would be good to introduce her to the other cats? Say one or two of the most friendly of them to begin with.