Bedtime Routine and feeding times advice plz ....

Tink84

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Ok so my little boy is going to be neutred nxt weekend and I wanted a little bit of advice on feeding times if i may.

Hes on dry food and i split his daily allowance as below:
7.30am - left out for him through the day
6.30 - small portion while we eat tea
11pm - when i go to bed as i couldn't get him to learn the bedtime routine any other way as he doesn't sleep in our room otherwise he runs around crazy an nips us to play.

So when he goes in he cant eat anything from 8pm the night b4.... how do I change his mealtime and signal bedtime without doing what i do now?

I want to start introducing wet food so was going to do that at the 6.30 feed an then maybe leave him a little dry food to access through the night as thats what hes used to...that souns ok? Xx
 

tabbytom

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My boy eats several times a day and his last meal of the day usually between 7:30pm - 8:30pm unless we are out and we'll feed him when we are back.
So usually after his 8pm feed, he dosen't eat anymore and he goes to bed between 10-11.30pm and he sleeps in our room on the bed with us. His next feed is in the morning at 5:15am.
He's on wet food throughout.
I'm not sure how hard is it to break the habit of free feeding as I have never done that with my boy before.
He is neutered at 7 months and he's about 9 1/2 months now.
 
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Tink84

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Thanks for your reply TabbyTom....im new to being a kitty parent can u tell lol Ok so dont know what to do then. Id have him sleep on the bed with us but he has a crazy "half hr" between 10.30-11.30pm and if we just go to bed he cries at the door for ages but when we was letting him in when we forst got him he would run crazy in the room for ages an nip at us to play even no matter how much we ignored him so i quickly decided to keep him out the room at night and devised his bedtime routine and it works so we had to stick with it! X
 

tabbytom

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He s still a kitten and he is doing his kitten stuffs. My boy use to nip at our eyes when we sleep but that's all over. It's just a phase he's going through. After that he'll stop. All you have to do is keep telling him no and you be patience.
Each night I sort of create a cave on my bed using pillows and bolster and a blanket and play hide with him. After that I'll play peekaboo with him. He'll run out of the room while I hide and peek at him and at the same time say the word peekaboo and he understands it. He'll then run and hide and prey on me. This is around 10pm. After a short while of running, hiding and panting, he'll just lay down and rest and I leave my room door ajar of he's outside or closed if he's in the room. Then he'll rest and later he'll just jump on the bed and go to his pillow and sleep till the next morning.
This is the routine I go through with him each night.
 
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Tink84

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Once again thank you very much for your replies. Its such a learning curve for me and i just want to get it right to save behaviour issues or unknowingly not treating him the way i should x
 

tabbytom

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No worries. You are welcomed. Initially it was difficult but once you get the ball rolling, it's not too bad.
Not all cats are the same. So you have to sort of understand them and hope that the routines work. Spend more time with him and talk to him often and play lots with him.
Introduce new ideas slowly and let him get use to it. He'll learn.
My boy use to rush for food while I'm preparing for him on the counter. I talk to him and say wait while I use my hand to block him. Now while I prepare his food, he will still jump up on the counter and I click a sound with my fingers and point to the place he's supposed to be and he'll just walk over to the other side of the sink and lay down and wait till I finished then he'll jump down and eat.
Just have to be patience and lots of it ;)
 
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