How do I get them to let me sleep?

OK, I love my boys to death, but I'm starting to get crabby from lack of sleep. They've always woke me up, but now they start earlier & earlier each morning and Jordan has gotten really naughty about the things he does. I think the problem comes down to one of having no control over them at all. I know people joke about not being able to control cats, but Jordan's games are getting old & frankly a bit scarry. I worry he will hurt himself, or one of the other two. Lately he has taken to playing with a large metal cross I have on the wall. I've tried spray bottels in the past, but they stopped working for him as soon as he figured out he could drink out of it. Now when I spray him he thinks it's an invitation to get his self some water. He will walk right up to it & put his mouth on it. Not that it ever really worked that well, I'd have to spray him like 12 times for it to affect him. At any rate this morning I woke up to my tray with my perfume crashing to the floor. Luckily nothing broke, but one bottle did open & some spilled on the floor. I'm hoping that the smell won't be as strong as it was this morning, but it made me angry. I guess I'm sick of being woke up to disasters & also I'm sick of being angry at him. I love him & he can be so sweet he's my cuddle bug, but enough is enough. I need help to try & get some control over him. He's almost two I though this kind of thing would be done by now. I think the main problem is that I feed them in the morning & he feels I need to be up an hour to 2 hours before their normal feed time. People have suggested cageing him while I sleep & while I'm gone (he's done countless destructive dangerous things while I'm gone), I've never wanted to do it because it seems mean & I'm afraid he won't be as friendly. Any ideas???

Get used to not leaving delicate stuff out, and get over it.

He is alpha over you in the bedroom. Therefore, you do not allow him in at night. Shut your door and let him have the rest of the house. To prevent him from scratching at the door, place your vaccum in front of the bedroom door on the side facing him. Have the cord run under the door, to an outlet but unplugged (have the machine switched on) his first try and meowing and or scratching the door plug it in, one second. Put both cats out of your bedroom. Either that or clear off all levels of dressers, shelves etc and wear ear plugs, Cats are nocturnal

I have the same problem with morning feeding time. Buddy tries to act out against the house or KC to get me up so I will feed him. Although I usually can not go back to sleep and don't want to just lay in bed and do get up.. I don't feed him till my GF's alarm goes off. This has sort of helped.. He seems to be getting the idea.. sorta.

I also keep him shut up with me in here if he does get me up so he can't cause more problems or act out, and I don't think he really likes being cooped up so maybe he will quit waking me up when he realizes he gets cooped up and not fed. Although that generally means having to try to get him to stop meowing and scratching at the door for an hour or two.. no small task either..

The more I write the less it sounds like this is working, although I havnt been at it that long and he has made some progress. I think what might work even better is just totally ignoring him so he realizes that being "bad" gets no response but that is REAL tough to do at 4am-5am. And something else to keep in mind, whats "bad" to us is just "fun" to a bored cat, he is not trying to be a pain hes just seeking attention or something to do.

Good luck!

I would suggest playing a heavy game with them at night, so they will be tired. Also, change their sleep patterns... if they are asleep during the day, wake them up, so that they will be tired at night, and sleep. Also, I would suggest putting them in a room of their own, example, spare bedroom, a bathroom, with lots of food, water, and litter, of course. That worked for me, though my cats sometimes still do wake me up, just not nearly as bad.

I'll lend you Sophie to play chase with them and that'll tire them out!!.

It's play time now in the McKinley household with the pair of them chasing each other up and down the stairs so i know they'll sleep tonight!

Originally Posted by CJandBilly

I would suggest playing a heavy game with them at night, so they will be tired. Also, change their sleep patterns... if they are asleep during the day, wake them up, so that they will be tired at night, and sleep. Also, I would suggest putting them in a room of their own, example, spare bedroom, a bathroom, with lots of food, water, and litter, of course. That worked for me, though my cats sometimes still do wake me up, just not nearly as bad.

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This is basically what we have done with our kitten. We play hard with her at night before bed and if she's being particularly bothersome she is shut out of the bedroom and allowed to roam the rest of the apartment. We don't leave anything out that we don't want her to knock over. She also has her own room, with toys, cat tree, etc. She whined at first when we shut her out of our room, but she got over it and doesn't anymore.

theres nothing wrong with shutting him in a room or even caging him as long as he has water, food and a litter tray.

you have to realise you are the alpha cat and have a right to sleep and a life inside your own house.

next time he misbehaves try putting him in a safe room (cat proof it first!) and shutting the door. he wont like it but he has to learn.

remember when you were a kid and you wanted to spend every night sleeping with mum and dad? you had to learn at some point that it was not allowed and it did you no damage to spend the night alone.

dont feel bad and good luck

Our boys have the run of our house EXCEPT FOR our bedroom. So at inght the door gets shut. On occassion they will scratch and meow at the door, but when this happens I get up and put them in the cat room (litter, food, cat tree etc).

Our kittens are shut in the bathroom at night. It's the place where they are be safest and can do least damage. When they've grown and calmed down a bit they will be allowed the run of the house again like our old cats had. For the moment I know they are safe, they are happy because it's the only room heated all night and I'm not scared of them falling through the spindles on the staircase or something similar in the dark. They've never cried on being shut in.

OK, so here's the update. After reading everything I've got a couple things I'm going to try. First of all, I'm going to feed Jordan a little bit more food at night. Right now all three get 1/4 cup in the morning & 1/4 cup at night. Jordan got 1/3 cup last night that I think Isaac shared with him after eating his 1/4 cup. At any rate Jordan fell asleep preety quickly, then slept until about 6AM, which is not that early, but I don't get up until 7. So when he started being naughty I put him & Isaac in the bathroom. Basicly I had to put them both in there because when I tried to put just Jordan in there he scratched at the door & my bathroom is tiny. I love the idea of the vacum cleaner, but I have no door on my bedroom & the bathroom is just too small. He seemed to do better with Isaac in there, so I didn't get much more sleep, but I guess it's about making a point. I really wish I could free feed because when I did that there was never the waking me up in the morning problem, but the vet wants Levi & Jordan to get slightly less than 1/2 cup a food each a day. Which may be good in theory, but she's not the one that has to live with them. So this is my temporary solution, but any other advice is appreciated because if I know Jordan this will work for a few days, then he'll find new ways to drive me crazy.

I never had a problem with Merlin waking me up until I brought L.S. home. Then the two of them kept trying to get me up earlier and earlier every morning. I finally had enough of it when they started waking me at 4 in the morning. So I started ignored them.

Yeah, it was horrible, but in 10 days they finally realized that when I'm in bed, the only attention they're going to get is if they come and lay down with me. They'll let me sleep until 12 in the afternoon now.

I cat-proofed the room just until they realized I wasn't going to respond to their demands. And once they settled down I brought everything back out and they leave it alone for the most part. When they started messing with something I wasn't able to hide (like the window blinds or trying to jump on my computer monitor or TV), I shook the Evil Pillow and they went running and wouldn't come back. (The EP is this squishy plastic bead filled pillow that is really comfy, but makes an odd sound that the cats don't like. I think that a bottle filled with change would have the same effect.)

Granted, just because this worked for my 2 doesn't mean that it will work for anyone else.

Another thing you can do is refuse to feed them until whatever time you would like to sleep to. Even if you're already up, don't fill the bowls. They've associated you getting out of bed with being fed, so now they're going to try to get you up whenever they're hungry.