Kitten personality changes

I adopted 2 kittens back in July. They're almost 9 months old now and up until recently seemingly normal. I'm not too worried about the female cat, Sookie. It's more of the male cat, Spike. He's not as social as he used to be. He doesn't run to the refrigerator whenever someone uses the ice machine. He doesn't sleep under my blankets anymore. He doesn't even like to be held for more than a minute or so before he starts pushing away. Both my parents and boyfriend have noticed this change, too.

He's eating fine, using his litter box, and playing like normal, it's just socially he's changed a lot. He also doesn't seem to be growing as rapidly as Sookie. All he does is sleep in his little kitty hammock until someone feeds him or brings out a toy. 

It might sound a bit crazy, but I'm just paranoid. We lost our other cats that we had for 15 years a year and a half ago due to illnesses, so it gives me anxiety to see my baby acting out of the ordinary.

Is this just a kitten phase or should I take him to the vet? 

Any kind of behavior change like that should be a sign that something is not quite right.  I'd get him to the vet for a check up.  It's not uncommon for littermates to be different sizes, but generally males are larger than females.  However, due to genetics, that's not always the case. 

EmilyCat1995 said:

Is this just a kitten phase or should I take him to the vet? 

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The answer could be neither.  It could just be his adult personality.  Kittens don't have their adult personalities and the fact that you are noticing this now at 9 months of age is very telling because my shelter does cat personality evaluations, and we don't test any kitten under 9 months of age for this very reason.  Almost all normally socialized kittens at a young age are a normal combo of playful, affectionate, will allow being held, etc.  As they mature their adult personalities come out.

We measure cat's on 2 basic scales of behavior 1- how social they are with people on a range from very independent to highly social/interactive and 2- how confident (brave) they are vs. how nervous they appear when presented with new situations.  You can end up with any combination along a sliding scale from 

a) very social and very confident

b) very social but nervous in new situations

c) very independent but very confident

d) very independent and very nervous

Or anywhere in between.  Your cat sounds mostly to me as falling somewhere along the line in "C" above.  Independent but reasonably confident.  

I agree with others though that a vet visit is a reasonable thing to do, but generally speaking if the cat is eating, drinking, peeing, pooping, not hiding, not lethargic, with energy within normal limits (you say he sleeps a lot but that's the number one thing cats do is sleep), then he's probably ok, so my question is if you wake him up, can you get him either to play or become interested in things?

As soon as he hears the bell on his toy he perks up and starts jumping around. So he seems normal, I guess just growing up.

Thank you! This helps a lot!

EmilyCat1995 said:

 
As soon as he hears the bell on his toy he perks up and starts jumping around. So he seems normal, I guess just growing up.

Thank you! This helps a lot!

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Agreed! If he jumps up thats great.  encourage play and treat for positive behavior!