8wk old kitten not weaning...

Hey guys. I have a question...actually, I have a friend that has a question...

It started out with this question:

"My two year old cat had a litter of three kittens. We gave two away and kept one, the problem is the kitten we kept is eight or nine weeks old already and he won't stop nursing from his mother!! He seems to like nursing more than solid food! Help, I don't think it can be good for a kitten to still be nursing at this age, can it?"

Then I asked her more specifics, such as:

- How did you attempt weaning your kitten? At what age, and with what, etc.

- What kind of food are you trying to wean your kitten to? (We had great success with Iams Canned Kitten food.)

- How much solid food is he eating daily, approximately?

- Are you trying to feed him wet or dry food?

And got a response of:

"I started weaning him at about four and a half weeks with wet kitten food. He only eats two or three bites of solid food a day and I'm giving him dry kitten food mixed with a little bit of liquid to soften it. I don't know what to do, I have an appointment with the vet to have my older cat spayed in a few weeks and the kitten is supposed to stop nursing at least a week before the appointment! I'm getting very upset. I might have to give this kitten away too just to get him to stop nursing I have run out of ideas. I even tried keeping them in different rooms so they would stay away from each other but than they both start howling and screeching!"

I must say I'm a bit tongue-tied on this one. It's not one I've had direct experience with, so I thought I would ask you guys to see if you had any advice/information/sites you can give me that would help her with her situation.

Thank you so much!

I know that a kitten will continue to nurse as long as the queen will allow him to so this is a problem for you, I am certain. I have never had to do this, so I cannot personally vouch for whether or not it is effective, but a couple of breeders I know suggested that you get yourself a tube sock ... cut the toe off and slip it over your girl to prevent the kitten from nursing. While I can offer no other advice than this, I would request a picture of your girl wearing her tube sock if you can manage it. While I am not in any way trying to make light of your concerns, it would be amusing to see a cat wearing a tube sock. *wink*

LOL...that does sound funny...but I'll let her know what you said, and let her know that you would like to see a picture of it. If she's bigger around, do you think a baby shirt will do?

So long as the baby shirt is tight enough that the cat can't remove it, I would imagine that would be fine. As I said, I have never had to do it but it made at least some small bit of sense. The problem I would see with it would be that if, like most cats, this girl is tenacious enough, she will simply flop over on the side and rub whatever clothing you put on her right off again. So, of a necessity, whatever you use has to be tight enough to prevent that, but loose enough not to constrict.

We had 4 kittens and kept one. We still catch her nursing from time to time and she will be 12 weeks on Tuesday. Only 1 nipple still has milk and the others have shrunk back to their size but I am trying not to worry about it. I figured it was because she only had one baby left and I am going to give it til after we get back from vacation to deal with it.

I think I read somewhere that if you try to wean kittens too soon that they might regress to nursing.

My problem the other morning was that I was still sleeping and my son saw the kitten nursing so he gave her milk to get her to stop! We had a loooong talk about that when he told me!