Stray started meowing at night.

I have sleep issues as it is and need help with dealing with this behaviour. He seems to do it about 4 AM. Tonight i am going to leave food out to see if that will help. Desperate. He's about 5 years old, fixed, and wondering if that's the reason he was abandoned. Only had him about a week and he's just starting to come out and visit at times. He def wants out, still.

Cats train us very well.  He's found that when he starts yelling, he gets a response.  It may take you awhile to figure out what he wants (out, food, attention).  Leaving the food out will help, I think, just to eliminate that as the reason he's yelling.

If it isn't the food, you may have to hunker down and ignore him.  I take it he's going to become an indoor only cat?  Hope so but it may take him awhile to realize his 4 am songs aren't getting the response he wants.

Do you have a tree for him to sit at a window and look out?  That may help, too.

Hi, Ondine, indoor only, I hope. ;-) I'm not responding to him at all. I figured that's a bad thing to do. Do ypu think he will stop? Or do some cats keep it going?
He's got a tree, sliders, a window box to look out, and I think that's the problem. It's all familiar and when he sees what he lived in and chased, he wants out.

It may take awhile but I'd keep ignoring him.  How often do you play with him?  He may need to have some energy expended before bedtime.

We have a cat who will wake us up at 2 am to play.  I've found ten to fifteen minutes of play before bedtime tires her out.  I use wand toys or a laser toy.  Just chasing something helps.

Thank you, Ondine. We play every chance we get. Esp to distract him from wanting to go outside and to make indoors more fun than outdoors. (Need to let a bunch of mice loose in the house. LOL) I will try to coax him out of his hiding place before bedtime. Sounds like a good idea. He likes to sleep just so he can get us up. :smshfrk: