Cats waking up too early

[runninlow3]

So my two cats, Simba & Jasmine tend to wake up around 5am. When they do get up, that early they tend to playfully chase each other from the living room into the bedroom. I've watched it...there's no hissing, growling, etc. 
Wouldn't mind it so much if it was closer to 7am when my wife & I are waking up to get ready for work.

Quick background...we've been fostering a female cat for the last 2 weeks now, who's 2 1/2yrs, Jasmine. I have a cat who I've adopted since he was a kitten, Simba. He'll be 5yrs this July. Jasmine's safe room is our bedroom, which is why I won't close the bedroom door at night. We have a 1br/1ba condo with kitchen & living being an open plan design...roughly 700s/f total.

They usually sleep for most of the day while we're at work. When I stop at home during lunchtime, they're up and I feed them and try to play with them for a couple minutes. In the evening, I've been playing with them after our dinner. Sometimes they begin to nap around 8pm. Being that Jasmine still spends alot of time in the bedroom, she relaxes alot on our bed.

I feed them their dinner when I get home for work around 5. They eat dry food for breakfast & dinner, wet for lunch. Not sure if feeding times were relevant or not but thought I'd include it.

I do play with them in the evening once we finish our dinner around 6:30-7pm.

Should I wait to play with them later in the evening so they sleep longer?

Or change their feeding times?

Any info/advice much appreciated!

 

[catspaw66]

Give them a good play session and then a snack right before you go to bed. That should make them sleep longer in the morning. When they do wake up and start bugging you at 5am, ignore them. Don't even look at them. Any response is what they want. Mine know that if they wake me up before I am ready to get up, all I will do is turn over and go back to sleep. They don't wake me up very often, now.

 

[kordron]

This may sound a little mean but if they're waking you up too early I would close your door so you can sleep. Play with them before bed and make sure they have all the necessities. Eventually they will get to understand that a closed door means bedtime for you.

I play with Lily before a bit and make sure she has everything she needs. Then I close my door and she has been getting to know that my door closed means I'm sleeping.

 

[jclark]

I can vouch for CatsPaw advise. I also read that if you stop free feeding them then you'll regain some control. Serious play will make them hungry and they'll eat a lot since they haven't had an opportunity to graze. I opted for 3 feedings a day, bowl is emptied each time.

I've been about 70 percent successful. I also tried a pheromone approach which has had diminishing returns.

My issue is that one of the two deliquents likes to scratch the carpet in the early AM. He paces around murmuring, licking blinds, pulling on blinds, and scratching the carpet. His brother looks at him like "Dude..STOP and go to bed!"

Carpet scratching has stopped because I spray no-scratch around the area of the bed. I'm not thrilled with that solution so I will be posting my own thread about it.