Cat drives us crazy every morning!

Our 8 month old female, Mimi, drives us crazy every morning. At around 6 am, she starts to walk on us, cry, touch her nose to our mouth/eyes/face, nibble our toes, etc. She's purring loudly during this time. Then I get up and feed her (I feed her twice a day), and this seems to make her leave us alone.

We love Mimi dearly, but is there anything we can do to change this behavior?

I just read an article about this, and it suggested we play with her 90-120 minutes before we go to bed, but I don't think we have quite that much time every evening.

This is pretty normal. It's an active time of day for cats. Can you close the door or put her in a room?

Unfortunately, you are making the problem worse!!

She annoys you and then you reward her by feeding her!! Next time she does this, just ignore her until she stops or if it continues to go on, then gently pick her up and throw her out of the room and close the door - And then get up and feed her later!!

Otherwise she will just continue to do it!! You can also try to break these habits by feeding them at slightly different times - Your cat will not suffer if you feed them a couple of hours later or earlier depending on you time frame!

We've tried leaving her outside the bedroom and closing the door, but then she sits right outside the door and cries and cries...

Yeah, it can be annoying but you just have to wait - The more you give in and feed her the worse she will get.

I know how you feel! I have two kittens that are doing it and its soooo hard to resist them!

Unfortunately you'll just have to ignore her when she does this. Cats are VERY stubborn and VERY persistent, so this behaviour will take some time to change, particularly since you have been positively reinforcing it with food for a while now. They are also confirmed creatures of habit and resist change, so this is going to be a difficult habit to break, but it can be done.

If you want to combat this problem she needs her own place to sleep, separate from you, where you can't hear her. You DO need to have interactive play time before bed - not 90-120 minutes, but half an hour at least. It is hard to find the time but she's a kitten and you need to do this, it's part of being a responsible cat owner. Wear her out with some interactive and stimulating toys (lots on the market, cheap and fantastic!) and then put her to bed at the same time every night with a toy or two and little bit of kibble. She'll hopefully sleep the night through if she's tired enough and when she does wake in the morning she'll have something to play with and a little food. This should get her out of the habit soon enough.

Our kits like to wake us when the sun rises, it's part of their nature and I've never had a cat that doesn't do it. She is also being affectionate, and showing you her love by requesting your company. You have to ignore it or put up with it, either one of the two, but you won't be able to stop it unless you give it some structured time and effort.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the replies. Wow, I've been positively reinforcing her behavior! So starting tomorrow morning, I'll leave her outside and try REALLY hard to ignore her crying. She should win an Oscar or something, because her crying is SO pathetic-sounding!

Actually, I think it's kind of nice having her give me so much attention, but my partner gets annoyed.

We do play with her every evening. My partner likes to playfully teases Mimi, and Mimi gets very excited and playful. Around 10-11 pm, she goes bonkers and runs around the apartment.

By the way, as I type this, Mimi just came over to me with a teddy bear in her mouth and placed it in my lap. Ya gotta love her!

She sounds gorgeous! As soon as she realises her meowing and attention-seeking behaviour is not going to be tolerated or rewarded, she'll eventually stop. But she'll keep going long after she knows you're not coming just because they're stubborn and like to have their own way. Eventually, though, the effort will become a pain and she'll just give up! Could take a while...lol

yup, my older cat did this to us for awhile at 7 am every morning. We usually woke up at around 10 am. It took us awhile, lots of ignoring and frustration, but she finally got the hint and never woke us up before 10 am again!! LOL. I found if we closed the door it would just get worse. So we left the door open, but just ignored her. She eventually developed the habit of coming in earlier than 10 am sometimes just to get under the covers and snuggle with us.

Although, if I slept in and my boyfriend (ex now) got up and closed our bedroom door, she would patiently stand at the closed door waiting for me to get up God i miss her.....

is she spayed?

Yes, she was spayed about a month ago. It almost killed her (long thread about it in the health section), but she fully recovered, thanks to the help I got from this forum.

She sounds like a little darling!!! (Although, thats the way with most cats who are generally Devils in disguise!)

I know what you mean about Oscars!! My 6 week old kitten sounds sooooo pathetic - But she knows it gets her attention - And its so hard to ignore her when she is soooo small!!! Hmmm...I'll have to take the hard stance though!

Good luck! Try putting cotton wool in your ears!

Only pay attention to her when she is quiet. That is the most important factor here. She has to know that silence is rewarded. Wear earplugs and if she insists on jumping on the bed in the morning, spray over the bed with a lemon scented air freshener (not lysol though) That will deter her.

You can put her out of your bedroom at night. Park your vacuum in front of the bedroom door, the machine is switched to on and the plug is under the door to be plugged in on your side of the door. If she cries, plug the machine in for just one sec, then unplug it.

I don't have a vacuum cleaner, but that sounds like a great idea.