We had to put Bruce out of the bedroom tonight!

The Bruce adventures continue and for the third consecutive night Mr. Bruce woke my husband up at 5ish.

He is kind of cute. He brings his favourite mouse and puts it next to my husband and gently wakes him up with his paw.  He's a master on playing fetch, since he learnt it last week.

My husband will put the mouse in his dresser drawer and Bruce will up the ante and start nibling on the electric wires from our alarm clock. There is no way we can ignore that and he knows it. 

Last night we agreed that if he did it again we would have to put him out of the bedroom. We really need our sleep and it's getting crazy out of hand.

And so we did, and found out that our bedroom door does not close fully and he can open it. Damn!

This means we needed to close the next door too, leaving him with the hall and the kitchen to be in. Mind you, we put his bed (that he never uses) and toys there, and his litter box is in the laundry room and food and water is in the kitchen. He had full access to all he needed.

But... of course Cat Mom here did not sleep a wink after putting him out. My poor baby meowed a bit, but not really crying, just like "come and play with me, please?!" meowing.

I'm really not looking for advice, just venting about my crazy attention seeking kitten. My very beautiful, sweet and crazy kitten, whom I love to death and cannot imagine my life without.

And I know he's young and full of energy. But we cannot do more. We play with him a lot (sometimes I think too much). He has toys and two cat trees, one of them 1,80m high. 

I really would like to get him some company, but really cannot afford it.

This is the life in the house of Bruce. 

Just keep thinking (like with any toddler) THIS TOO WILL PASS! 

You could wedge your door shut with a door wedge.  I wedge my bathroom door open just enough for Dudley to pass without him pushing the door open so widely that it exposes me to the draughty hallway when I'm in the bath, and I can't then reach to shut it   
The one in my bathroom looks a bit like this one below but is blue.

Hi @Brian007!

I really don't want to put him out, we really love that he sleeps with us. 

Today was 6 a.m., a bit better but still a full hour before our wake up time. 

He is just full of energy at that time. Then around 7.45 he's sleeping again, the little turd!

We're trying diferent things, to find out what works. Next monday we're leaving the living room opened, where he has his bigger tree. Maybe if he has more room he keeps from waking us up?! It's tricky, there is lots of mischief he can get into there.

We're also trying to ignore him, but it's not easy, as he is so darn cute! If he was more obnoxious it would be easier. But he tenderly wakes us up, with cuddles and paw and head bumps...

In my opinion, and bearing in mind I've not met Bruce or you, he's probably just hungry, as 5amish is feline breakfast time.  Either get up on autopilot to feed him, then go straight back to bed without acknowledging him in the slightest.  This honestly becomes second nature in time.  Dawn is breakfast time in Bruce's world.  The breakfast should tire him out, on the one hand, and distract him from his intent to pester you, on the other.  This is what now I do with Dudley and eventually with Brian, once he got the hang of things.  I answered a tread the other day on a ragdoll, waking its parents at 5am and explained in brief my experience with Brian.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/335563/help-ragdoll-5am-meowing

You can by battery powered automatic feeders, which I have had varying success with over the years when training/breaking the habit with Brian.  The double battery one sounds like a great solution, although Brian soon learned to drive his poor wee nose, and paws in-between the gap of the two feeder doors, to wrench it open before the timer went off, causing himself bloody damage and a bruised face.  But, then, he was a supersized hugely powerful and determined pussycat.


I also got a single feeder, which suited him better, although the sound of him trying to break in was just as disturbing, as bashing it against the kitchen wall and jamming it under the fridge for leverage, was equal to his biting me on the nose to wake up.  I also found traces of damage to both his face and feeder with this.


You can also get wind-up, clockwork feeders, that slowly rotate, revealing the food in each section, over a six hour period in 24 hours.  But Brian would ram him nose, then his whole face in, to get at he upcoming kibbles, and would get a bloody nose and bruising to his perfect white noise and face.


And, last but not least, there are many super, fancypants automatic feeders on the market, which I think would be more Brianproof.  However, they cost upwards of $100, and so I never bought him one


I have a cupboard full of abaondoned other types of automatic feeders.  After a while Brian and I came to the mutual agreement that only after 6am was an acceptable ish breakfast time, he sometimes would let me sleep in til 7am or even 8am on my birthday.  I never once awoke to him not sitting as close to my head as possible, gently patting my eyelids and nibbling my nose.  And, I couldn't bear the self-inflicted injuries his determination at breaking into the feeders would leave on his beautiful face, but I'm 95% certain most cats don't behave in the way he did towards them.

Because Bruce is a slender, smaller cat that Brian, maybe an automatic feeder set just before his usual time to get up to pester you might work.  Or at lest help break his habit, or readjust when a more suitable breakfast time should be.  However, Bruce looks fairly canny and clever to me, so I firstly recommend trying the single type shown in picture two, it is the cheapest of the lot, also.  

   

Bruce is free fed, so no, it is not hunger but company to play that he seeks. Even if we get up, he doesn't even go to the kitchen, where he eats.

He brings us toys. He wants to play.

The better solution was to find him a play mate, but we really cannot afford to keep two cats.

You can retrain a cat's behaviour through food.  By removing his free-feeder and giving him set mealtimes 3 times a day instead, will work wonders as a training method.  Once he's got the hang of it, you could go back to free-feeding or continue with set mealtimes.  Cats are ruled by their hunger, or perception of hunger.  You can use this to great advantage with behavioural training.  He would still be ingesting the same amount as if free-feeding (and would be less likely to become overweight also).  It's just an idea, but is a tried and tested one.  He will protest at first at the loss of his free-flowing food but would very soon get the hang of the fact that mealtimes are something to look forward to and give him routine and structure to his day.  Perseverance is key.  You would find him getting ever so excited at the sound of his food being put in his bowls, and he'd probably come up to you afterwards to say, "thank you for that, it really hit the spot; I think it might be time for a swift nap now to sleep   and dream, sweet dreams of fish."  

Bruce is, for now at least, one of those who doesn't really mind food that much. And I want to keep it like that. My experience says that free fed cats are actually more thin than if you take their food away. My vet agrees with me too, so he will continue to be free fed.

He has dry feed at his disposable, but in controlled quantities of course.

He is fed wet twice a day, when I arrive home from work and when we're having breakfast,about one hour after we get up. It's a schedule that is good for everyone and as I said he doesn't ask for it before. While we're getting ourselves ready for work, he will happily play around us. He does beg when I get home at the end of the day, but I think is most for the ritual itself than the food.

Bruce doesn't even like treats. Just like my previous cat, he eats when he's hungry and that's it. He will leave wet food if he's not that hungry. Zoya was a beautiful lean lady until she passed at 16. She was sterilized at 6 months and an indoor/outdoor cat, free fed all her life.

And I really don't think feeding him at different hours will change our 'problem'. He will play for an hour after he eats, climbing, jumping and tumbling. The theory that he will rest after he eats does not work with this cat. On the contrary, he's wildest hours are after he eats his wet food.

Thank you so much for your advice, but we just need to deal with this bundle of energy, while he grows, and hope he will settle down when he's older. Just like having a toddler, as someone said.

It is just like having a toddler. Have you thought about getting one of those timed Lazer toys? You can set it to go off around the time he normally trys to wake you up so that he has something interactive to play with.