# Cat crying very early in the morning...



## Emma_R (May 30, 2011)

Hi,

I am just after some help/advice really!
We have a six month old kitten and we live in a one bedroom flat! We leave her in the living room overnight (with our other 3 year old cat) and until recently she slept through until we get up at 7am! However recently she has started crying between 5-6am and scratching on the door and/or hooking her nails underneath it. As the flat is so small obviously it wakes us up and then we can't get back to sleep, which is no good when we have to get up for work at 7am!

We don't know what to do! We don't want to start feeding her at that time because she will just carry on expecting it at that time every morning but we also can't leave her just crying! We have tried going into the room and telling her in a firm voice that its not morning yet and to go back to sleep but this does not seem to make any difference. We try and not let either of them in our bedroom so don't really want to change their sleeping habits to allow them into our room at night!

We really don't know what to do and just wondered if anyone had any ideas?

Thank You!


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## BlondeMoment (Feb 25, 2011)

Could the other cat be tormenting her in any way? That would be my first suspicion.


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## jill3 (Feb 18, 2009)

This is not unusual as it's Summer and it get's light very early. By 4am it's light.
I know's cause i am the one that has to get up early to drive people to airports
Your little one being only 6 months will wake up early as all babies do. Also she can hear the dawn chorus. By 6 am it's very lively out there:001_smile:

The only thing is to play with her before you go to bed make her tired and put some black out curtains up so it remains fairly dark in her room.

I am afraid telling her off will not work. It is nature for them to wake up early, and have a sleep in the afternoon.


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## daniellecool2003 (Jan 2, 2010)

Just wondering is she neutered? just asking cause our little girl did this when she was in heat.


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## AnimatedApe (Oct 18, 2010)

daniellecool2003 said:


> Just wondering is she neutered? just asking cause our little girl did this when she was in heat.


That was exactly what I was thinking, has she been spayed?

Alternatively it could be that she wants to be fed, our Lenin did this at exactly 5 am every morning, so we adjusted her feeding schedule so that she now has two smaller meals in the early and late evening (four meals total). We also refused to respond to her terrorist demands at such an unnatural hour, and after a few days it stopped.


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## xzhou (May 19, 2011)

AnimatedApe said:


> That was exactly what I was thinking, has she been spayed?
> 
> Alternatively it could be that she wants to be fed, our Lenin did this at exactly 5 am every morning, so we adjusted her feeding schedule so that she now has two smaller meals in the early and late evening (four meals total). We also refused to respond to her terrorist demands at such an unnatural hour, and after a few days it stopped.


I was going to say the same. So far, from what I have observed of my thomas, as long as I ignore his unreasonable demand, then he'd stop. Sometimes you probably have to be cruel to be kind. It's hard I know but it's for the best.:sad:


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## NIKKID (Jun 5, 2011)

I'm interested in this topic as my young 'un seems to think that 3:30 am is playtime and loves bouncing on Mum's head at this ungodly hour. It's very hard to react in a 'suitable' fashion when Furball XL5 has just tried to make off with your hair. I've got long hair and he's fascinated with it. I've seen some very odd telly that time of day while waiting for him to settle back down. Live him dearly but could well do without the 3 o'clock alarm call though. Hopefully he will grow out of it.


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## Sadie SU (May 15, 2011)

RE: Emma's kitten...... 6am is pretty much the middle of the morning from a cat's point of view, at this time of year. It's been light for a couple of hours by then. I can stand witness to this, having watched many a 4am sunrise while nursing my three month old daughter, in the way back when. :closedeyes: If you want to buy yourselves a couple hours more sleep, I'd try staggering out of bed for long enough to put a feed down for the cats when the kitten kicks off. Either that, or maybe one of those automatic feeder thingumyjigs, set to rotate a portion of food into view at the right time.

RE: Nikkid's kitten......My worry would be that if you make it a social interaction time by getting up and watching the telly, then this is going to become an ingrained habit rather than something the kitten will grow out of. Applying human baby psychology (see 4am sunrise watching, above  ), I think it would be better to keep the whole environment as calm and 'sleepytime' as possible. If the kitten insists on hooning round then there's no point trying to stop him/her, but don't be tempted to join in. Is the kitten having a meal at bedtime? Could the last meal be a bit bigger? It may be that it's the tummy talking at 3.30am, and if you can get a few more calories in at 11pm then you might have a better chance of a good night's sleep for all of you.


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## Faerie Queene (Dec 30, 2008)

Oh dear - this is very familiar.

Reggie Boy, aged approx 4 years, had a habit a while back, of waking me at 5am. I was a bit daft and got up and fed him, which of course was just what he wanted. Eventually, I had a bright idea and gave him a small amount of food at my bedtime. This did the trick - no more early wakings.

He now has another habit though.
If he hears me get up, but I don't go to him straight away, he starts moving things around on the bench. We both know that eventually something will fall on the floor, so I tend to get there 'quick smart'!


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## KirstyLouise (Mar 17, 2011)

I have this with my kittens and ive had the same problem since they were four months old.

Every morning 5am meowing and jumping at the door like its some big emergency as soon as i feed them its quiet again but when they do this now i just ignore them and let them carry on and after 10/15mins they calm down.


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## TatiLie (Nov 2, 2010)

Same situation here.

We live in a one bedroom flat. Ari stayed in the living room, which she was fine until she understood where we go when it's time to sleep. Then she started to scratch the carpet by the door around 6am which we were good to ignore... then it was 4am when she started and we did the 'sshhhh' thing, 'no-no', 'Ari, it's sleeping time!'.

Then in a while it was not enough to keep her quiet. We had to wake up and pick her up and give her a 'time out' in her bed. A couple of nights later I had to go to sleep in the sofa. Then she started doing it at 2am!!!! :crying:

We just caved in (well, my husband did). We leave the door ajar and she comes to sleep on our bed.

Now, she wakes ups up at 5am looking for cuddling. Today at 6am she was running and bouncing on us and playing with our feet. I wonder what will come next... :cryin:

So, moral of the story: never cave in!!! Be strong! Never let her know that she has the power to keep you awake! Just ignore her!!

Good luck!

PS: Happened the same to my friend and her cat. They also caved in after her boyfriend had to spend some night in the living room.


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## NIKKID (Jun 5, 2011)

Sadie SU said:


> RE: Emma's kitten...... 6am is pretty much the middle of the morning from a cat's point of view, at this time of year. It's been light for a couple of hours by then. I can stand witness to this, having watched many a 4am sunrise while nursing my three month old daughter, in the way back when. :closedeyes: If you want to buy yourselves a couple hours more sleep, I'd try staggering out of bed for long enough to put a feed down for the cats when the kitten kicks off. Either that, or maybe one of those automatic feeder thingumyjigs, set to rotate a portion of food into view at the right time.
> 
> RE: Nikkid's kitten......My worry would be that if you make it a social interaction time by getting up and watching the telly, then this is going to become an ingrained habit rather than something the kitten will grow out of. Applying human baby psychology (see 4am sunrise watching, above  ), I think it would be better to keep the whole environment as calm and 'sleepytime' as possible. If the kitten insists on hooning round then there's no point trying to stop him/her, but don't be tempted to join in. Is the kitten having a meal at bedtime? Could the last meal be a bit bigger? It may be that it's the tummy talking at 3.30am, and if you can get a few more calories in at 11pm then you might have a better chance of a good night's sleep for all of you.


I hadn't thought about it this way. I shall certainly give it a try. Funnily enough my mother has just adopted the brother of my boy and he's doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time I shall certainly give the late meal a try


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## Nico0laGouldsmith (Apr 23, 2011)

couldn't you leave them some high quality dried cat biscuits? just a few to snack on. . . my cat has always had high quality biscuits available at all times. . . and cats don't over eat. . . so as long as they are changed each day and left dry she just snacks on them if she needs them. . .she gets fed between 6 and 8am every morning (depending on what time I have to be at work) and she never complains. . . because she has the biscuits if she is really hungry. . .she just eats a few and then waits for her proper breakfast. . . then they're available to her all day with water too and she will then get fed at about 3:30pm or 11:30am (depending on work yet again) and then she will get fed again (only small amounts) between 6 and 8pm. . .then she has the biscuits available to her again all night. . . she's not overweight and she is a happy cat. . .she's 17 this year too so I must be doing something right!

I think at first they might eat the cat biscuits thinking they are a meal so if you do this only put literally a few out for them with water next to it. . . and another reason to not put many out is that if they're not used to biscuits they may eat them far too quickly and not realise they swell a little in their tummies and make them sick. . .undigested biscuits. . . if they've never had dried cat food before you might want to wean them on to it. . .my cat has always been fed high quality wet meat and high quality dried biscuits throughout the day so she is used to it so if you did take this option just wean them onto it by introducing a few biscuits after their meals. . . 

but it kind of makes sense. . .if there is already a small amount of food there for them they might not mew to wake you up to feed them


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## tyrole (May 5, 2009)

Max is shut in the back room at night. As soon as he hears the back door being locked and the blinds being pulled he darts into his bedroom and sits by the window waiting for his bedtime snack. He stays in that room until someone gets up and lets him out, that ranges from 6.30 - 8am. Luckily only twice has he scratched at an unearthly hour and that was because he was starving - the human in charge hadn't put enough night time snack down :blink:naughty dad:001_tongue:


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