What is going on with Jordan?? Someone help us!

Ari- sad to say but you have one spoiled kitty. Cats run on different cycles than we humans do. They prey at night and early in the morning, this is when mice, birds and other sources of protein are out and about. You can't change their instinct, and we have been trying for centuries. Although they are not as wild as they used to be, they still respond to different stimuli, hear things that are unseen to us.

So what you do, is your re-program Jordan gradually. This will not happen overnight but it will happen. You can find this article might help-

Night Crazies

Also since very little sleep makes us cranky and sometimes that crankiness flows over to the cat causing us to lose sleep- set Jordan up with a nice little room to sleep-over in. Make it as comfortable as possible, if it is a spare bedroom, turn it into a cat room by pulling some of the drawers out of dressers and making a big cave he can explore. Put in a cat condo www.felinefurniture.com has wonderful condos that encourage even the laziest cat to jump and explore. Play harp music at night in the room to lull him to sleep or get a sound machine that plays soothing noises and put that in there. Burn night lights at night in that room so he isn't in total darkness.

Best way to keep a cat out of your bedroom, park your vacuum in front of your door. Run the plug underneath the door, leave the machine on, if kitty "knocks" on the door, get out of bed, plug in the machine 2 seconds then unplug.

Hope this helps-

I feel your pain. We periodically go through spells where Nedicks gets us up at daybreak every day for several days, either by directly waking us up with meeps and head bonks, or by noisily getting into things in the bedroom. We've never figured out a way to completely solve the problem, but one way we've lessened it is by trying to minimize her opportunities to make noise. For example, I always make sure my closet is completely closed, otherwise she taps the door open with her paw and it is very squeaky, it sounds like one of those haunted house doors. We never close the bedroom door completely, always leave it open a crack, so there's no scraping and whining at the door. Basically, we've found that if she can come and go as she pleases and can quietly entertain herself, she will, for the most part, leave us alone. Occasionally if she sees DH roll over very early in the morning she will come over and start with the head bonks, but he encourages that sort of behavior by petting her when she does it. If she does it to me I just keep my eyes closed and don't respond and eventually she goes away (she does it to me much less now, I guess because she has learned she will get nothing out of it).

Like Jordan, she is a rather clingy kitty too, so maybe some of these things will work for you. Maybe he just needs to know he CAN get to you if he wants to, and then will become less inclined to actually wake you up. Good luck!

Edited to add: I see Hissy and I come down on completely opposite sides of the fence...I'd go with her approach first, as I would be the first to say that I probably spoiled my kitties too!

Sophies going through this at the moment. I have my house alarm set so the girls have to stay shut in the room with me until i get up and switch it off, but the light mornings don't help the situation either

Sophie just sits at the door meowing at the top of her voice and when i peep through the slits of my eyes i can see her look at me every now and then as if to say " Has that not woke her up yet!" But like Stefanie, if you show Sophie the tiniest hint that your awake, she's there tapping at your face or arm and yelling at you to get up

My two are also spoilt and Sarah(Sar) is making me a condo for the girls so hopefully that'll help, but in the meantime it's extra playtime tonight for Sophie to try and make her sleep

Susan, this sounds like if you show ME the tiniest hint you're awake, I'll be there tapping at your face... Gosh, I hope DH doesn't start trying to scare me with the vacuum...

My first cat did this too, it drove us craaaazy!!! She would come in our room and do things that she knew she wasn't supposed to do...like scratch at the furniture, etc. She did it for attention. Finally, she stopped doing this, maybe at around 1 1/2 years old. She never stopped waking up at 4:00 am, but she did stop bothering us. I guess it was because she got older and calmed down a bit and wasn't so needy. She has since passed away.

We recently adopted two kittens (littermates) and we started shutting our bedroom door from day 1. We figured it would be okay since they have each other to play with at night and in the early morning hours. It's worked great and they never bother us.

Anyway, sorry I don't have any advice but wanted to say you're not alone!

Also wanted to say that the vacuum idea is an awesome idea!! I wish I would have thought of that with our first kitty.... it probably would have saved my lots of sleep-deprivation!

Pudge has been doing this to me. Not so much fun when I'm asleep, but hilarious when I am awake.

She likes to sit in the living room and meow. When I look up, she'll be just sitting there, staring at me as if to say "Ok, that worked." The second I turn away, she takes a few steps and does it again.

If I go to the bathroom, I'll usually see a little grey paw swatting around under the door after a few seconds if she's not darted in ahead of me. She's begun meowing while she does it as well. I believe that I am being trained.

I have this problem with Molly. She gets on the bed and meows in my face until she's pet. Unfortunately, she doesn't want to snuggle. She wants attention. She moves her body around constantly so I'll pet the appropriate places and when I stop petting she starts meowing again. Luckily, lately, she hasn't wanted attention until around 9 am. I'm on summer vacation so this is great for me.

My girls are incredibly spoiled and both resort to "vocal blackmail" to get what they want. I think Hissy's ideas are great and I will start using them myself when Molly goes back into her 4 am pattern. Why is it always 4 am?

I've become accustomed to Serenity's middle of the night wake up calls to play. Our best solution to decrease this behavior is having a long play time before bed. She chases her toys back and forth and back and forth as I throw them, always brings back her flutterballs and furballs to be thrown again. We then enjoy playing with her Da Byrd or some other wand toy. This gives us some special time and helps to tire her out nicely. Another good idea is a nice wet meal right before bed to help keep her tummy full longer.

this thread really interests me. I have a kitten and my husband and i installed a cat door between the closets of the cat room and our bedroom. When Stoli seems tired enough we open the closets and he can choose where he sleeps. If he is wound even after night play sessions he has to stay in his room. I'm scared to let him roam the house at night with no supervision. How did other people do this - let their cats roam either when no one is home or at night?

How old is Stoli?

he's 20 weeks

Aaah...so he's still a small kitten. I think you are right that he might get into trouble roaming the entire house at night all alone. Is there a guest bedroom you could keep him in instead (if he is too noisy in your bedroom)?

His room is actually our second bedroom which we have connected to our room (through the closets) with a cat door.

It sounds as if I'm not totally off my rocker about keeping him in (as my husband would say) 'kitty prison'

Renovia

well what works for my cats is playing with them for a long time right before yoou go to bed so that they will get tired out. it usually works. I would just try tiring him out before bed in any way you can.

My cat does the exact same thing. Unfortunatley, he is pretty good until I have to get up to pee (not something I can control). Then he starts to get more and more demanding for my attention. He starts vocally and then moves onto biting my hand. I got bit on the lip last week (that was when I got home REALLY late so he didn't get as much attention in the evening as he was used to). I know it isn't his fault - he is just trying to communicate with me in his most effective manner. However, that doesn't mean I want to encourage it or have it continue.

I know my cat is spoiled. Unfortunately, I am so determined to show this cat how much he is loved and to ensure that he is happy that he ended up spoiled. He came from a shelter and I think he still has abandonment issues, even over a year later. I just want him to be happy and to know that he is loved and I just want to be a good parent.

I can't really try the vacuum trick as I live in a condo. Does that Feliway stuff work? If so, I just have to figure out how to get it in Canada.

Cindy

Monty and Bootsie also have this problem. They wake up around 4 or 5 and start chasing each other around the house. Their chases often wind up on the bed and even on top of me!

Bootsie likes to run around real fast on top of the comforter (it's got a sheet-like texture). She also likes to walk around on top of the alarm clock until the radio turns on. Monty will look for any of my skin that is showing and get to work licking me (that wakes me up without fail). When I pull the comforter over my whole body including my face he tries to shove his way under it.

They are spoilt. But, it is less bad if I don't move, because the minute I move their purring bodies are walking all over me. But they give up after I am still for a while, and I never feed them before 7.

Since he trys to get at you by jumping at the door when you are in the bathroom, MAYBE there is something in the closet he wants!

Did he leave a toy in there?

Maybe if you left it open a crack for him at night, he might not bang against the door anymore and would stop waking you up.

My kitties are not allowed in the closet. Because 1) I am affraid I will lock them in there all day, and 2) Polly has a love of laundry. and will nest in the folded sweaters and get hair all over everythign!

BUT occasionaly someone leaves the door open a smidge and someone gets in.

I am just sayin, maybe?

I have this aswell with my cat, everywhere i go even to just go to the loo she screams at me, and it gets louder and louder and this is when I'm not sleeping when i do sleep she screams on the top of her little lungs early in the morning until I'm awake i take her off the bed but she comes screaming back until shes fed, the only way i can get peace if i put some cat food out before i go to bed and hide it when the cat goes to sleep then in the morning i wont hear anything from her because she will find the food herself in the morning and i can get a good nights sleep. .

but what i wanted to know is how to stop her wailing during the day, i give her toys, pick her up to stroke her and give her treats but she still won't stop wailing, sometimes i just ignore her and she eventually stops but sometimes when i ignore her, the wailing get louder and longer....

I also have a cat that does this. He wakes me up every morning between 5:30 and 6am. If he can't wake me up by sitting on my stomach and pawing me in the face he starts rattling the blinds or scratching the lamp shade. I can't tell you how many lamps he has broken. He even knocked the lamp on my head one morning. I have had to install lamps that mount on the wall. Now he stands on the headboard and scratches those lampshades as well. The reason my cat does this is that he wants outside. Two of my cats are allowed to go outside for a few hours each day. He does not use the litter box and by early morning he has to go. So whatever it takes to get his Mom up he's gonna do it. Good luck breaking yours of this...I sure haven't had any success.

If you have tried LITERALLY everything else, try changing the food. That's what it seems to be for my cat.

Oh, and if you think the cat always meowing around 4 is weird, you should hear Puppy. He meows on the hour! Puppy meows, we roll over, and the clock says 1:00. Next time it's 2:59. Then 4:01. Then 5:00. Really weird...

I have this same problem- however, my cat is 12 years old and LONG out of kittenhood, and we can't tire her out with playing because- get this- she DOESN'T PLAY. ever. We have toys, we have catnip mice, she likes them and will occasionally chew on them, but doesn't play. So there's no way to tire her out. I'm pretty sure she wants food but she knows she doesn't get fed until 7 am. I'm hoping we can get another cat and she'll keep the new cat up all night instead of us.

Although there seems to be more questions than answers in this thread, it's so far fairly helpful. However...well, just read my story.

I have two cats. Athena and Sarai. They are littermates, almost a year and a half old. Rescued by a local organization at 3 weeks (the mother is feral) and my boyfriend and I adopted at 8 weeks. They had no adjustment problems for the first year, and were perfect angels. Now, while Athena is still an angel, Sarai has become neurotic. She meows/whines around 9am (I'm a bartender and he's a programmer, so we work late, and they follow our schedule pretty well) and won't stop until someone gets up and gives her attention.

During the day, while I'm trying to study and my boyfriend is trying to work, she whines while she plays, "talking" to her toys. If one of us tries to play with her, or put her next to us for petting, she jumps off and runs away, only to come back in a bit and start the whole thing over. When one of us gets up to use the bathroom, she follows us, and if she doesn't make it there before us, lays in front of the door and whines while scratching to be let in.

She has many toys that are switched up on occasion to keep them "new", always has food in her dish(dry, no wet food because they get addicted to it and bug us all the time), and I live in a brownstone apartment in NYC, so the vacumn idea isn't exactly feasible. If I let her in the bedroom, she gets up on the dresser and knocks things over.

I'd love to break her of this, because her neurosis means we have to put Athena outside the bedroom, and she loves sleeping with us. I hate to think I'm punishing one cat for the other's problems.

Thank you so much for the advice in this thread. I'm going to put it to use so I can get a full nights sleep!

The vacuum cleaner thing WORKS! Thank you SO much!

I have a similar problem (which was actually why I was surfing for cat advice forums lol)
my cat Mecha is 7 months old and used to sleep through the night till we got up but doesnt anymore.
Anywhere between 5 am to 7 am she is up, she doesnt really want attention though she just wants me awake, she will climb onto everything and do anything that she knows will wake me up and when I put her into her room she meows loudly, cries and then runs into stuff making as much noise as possible.
Once I'm up she'll hapily go and do her own thing, but not if I'm asleep lol

Spencer refuses to sleep through the night BUT there are many nights he 100% refuses to even go down stairs! I've tried everything and I'm at the end of my rope. PLEASE HELP!!