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Help, cats don't let me sleep

post #1 of 3
10/1/11 at 5:33pm
Thread Starter 
So I adopted two cats from the shelter about two months ago, and I intoduced them to wet foods last month. Ever since, they have the terrible habit of jumping on my bed around 5am (I feed them twice a day), and the smaller one will even crawl under my bed and meow until I get up and feed them.

I have tried leaving a bowl of dry food out, or feeding them bigger portions (they won't eat all of it, and later they won't touch the left overs). Bigger portions, more feedings and different brands make no difference.

I am not sure what else to do except go back to dry food only. Please help!
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post #2 of 3
10/1/11 at 6:58pm
Hi, Tourman. Welcome to TCS!

Don't put your cats back on kibble, you'll only be trading an irritating problem today for a perhaps very serious one in the future (which I'm sure you know, since you switched them from kibble to canned to begin with).

Your solution is a two-step process. First, increase your feedings to three a day: shortly after you get up, when you first come home from work, and just before you go to bed. Cats are more comfortable with smaller, more frequent meals (their natural hunting pattern) and three meals per day seems to be the most well-tolerated.

If these two cats are less than a year old, they should be getting ~10 ounces of food a day (very rough estimate). If they're older, one 5.5 or 6 ounce can of food each day should be sufficient (again, that's an estimate).

Second, never, ever feed your cats when you first get up in the morning. You need to condition them to associate something else with that first meal. I shower before feeding my cats and have since the first one arrived. I have six and not one of them will wake me for anything at all - but I have quite the audience when I step out of the shower. You can drink a cup of coffee, spend ten minutes reading a paper, anything, just feed them after the same activity every single day.

Hope you get some sleep soon!

AC
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post #3 of 3
10/1/11 at 8:00pm
Thread Starter 
The smaller one (around 8lbs) is about a year and a half old. The other one (I think about 11lbs) is around 2yrs old. I really do not want to keep them on dry food, but a month of lack of sleep adds up.

I will try to feed them before bed and after having some coffee or something. I tend to give them two 5oz cans a day, sometimes a bit less if they dont eat all of it. But morning feedings aren't terribly consitent; I've only been getting 5-6 hours of sleep before they wake me up, but I work 2nd shift so I get up late (9:30am normally).

I am gonna buy some feeline's pride wet foods, though I was holding off because I wasn't sure if I was gonna be forced to stick to dry foods.
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