Is your cat or kitten keeping you awake? How to wean a cat from running at night: advice from experienced owners How to wean a cat from running at night

Many cat owners and breeders often face this problem when a furry pet confuses day with night and becomes more active at night. Agree, it’s not very pleasant if, after a hard day at work, someone disturbs your sleep and peace, even if it’s your favorite cat. The inability to get a good night's sleep leads to irritation, decreased performance, and nervousness. Therefore, let's look at how to stop a cat from running around at night in a house or apartment? What to do if your pet makes noise, meows and keeps you from sleeping at night?

Cats by nature are incredibly inquisitive, quite energetic and cheerful creatures. Throughout the day, periods of wakefulness alternate with rest and sleep. But what if your pet is active at night when everyone is sleeping? To stop a kitten from running at night, you need to find out the root cause of this behavior.

As a rule, small kittens or energetic young cats show playfulness at night. While the owners sleep, inquisitive animals explore the world and explore their home. In most cases, such behavior is noted during the period of socialization and adaptation of the animal to new conditions. During the day, when no one is in the house, cats sleep in anticipation of “night games”, so their “day” begins with the onset of darkness or in the evening.

Important! Adult, elderly cats adapt to biorhythms, the schedule of their owners and sleep at night. Even if the pet wakes up at night, it does not necessarily mean that it will make noise; most likely, the cat is hungry or wants to get around its property.

Manifestations of night activity in cats manifest themselves in different ways. Some pets run around the apartment, climb all the heights, use various objects as toys, happily rolling them along the floor, and climb curtains. Others, after running around the house, climb into their owners’ beds, begin to bite their hands, and meow loudly. At the same time, maximum night activity is observed in the period from three to five hours.

Adult male cats can scream heart-rendingly at night during the rutting season. Typically, this behavior occurs several times a year, and especially in early spring.

Reasons for night wakefulness and activity in representatives of the cat family:

• the pet is hungry or there is no water in the bowl;
• the cat is worried or in pain;
• lack of physical activity during the day;
• the cat experienced severe stress, nervous shock;
• the pet attracts the attention of the owners.

If a cat is shy and there are other pets (cats, dogs) in the house, it tries to sleep during the day, hiding in secluded places to avoid unnecessary contact, and stays awake at night.

Also, do not forget that cats are excellent and very cautious hunters, so they prefer to go hunting at night. The hunting instinct makes cats very sensitive to sleep and dozing. Animals hear and distinguish sounds that are elusive to the human ear. If the cat has shown activity, it is possible that someone has disturbed her sensitive sleep (a bird, a night moth).

Correcting cat behavior

If the pet is absolutely healthy and is awake at night, the heart-rending meowing is not associated with any diseases or pathologies, using our recommendations and advice you can wean the cat from making noise at night.

If a cat runs around the apartment or house at night, Organize your cat a variety of active leisure activities. Buy toys that imitate the movements of animals and birds. They will help realize the hunting instinct, and the pet will be interested. Games with balls and wind-up mice will provide great entertainment for cats who love to chase prey. You need to play with your pet until you are sure that the animal is tired. Organize a play complex, climbing shelves, vertical supports with a platform, buy interactive toys.

Play with your pet an hour or two before bedtime, then feed him. It is best to give your cat chicken, beef, or any other meat food before a night's rest. After physical activity and a satisfying meal, cats usually go to bed.

Important! A well-fed, tired cat actually falls asleep quickly, but this does not mean that after a while the animal will not wake up and be active. So think about what you can do to interest your pet during the day. The more cats are awake during daylight hours, the less desire they will make to make noise and play at night.

If a cat is nervous, behaves restlessly, reacts inadequately to external stimuli, walks around the house at night, meows pitifully not only at night, but also during the day, it is possible that the cat is experiencing discomfort and pain due to an illness or worsened chronic pathology. Carefully observe the condition and behavior of your pet. If you notice symptoms of malaise or a deterioration in general condition, take the cat to the clinic for examination and diagnostic testing.

If your cat meows due to lack of affection or attention, pay him some attention before going to bed. Hygiene procedures can be useful for business. Comb the fur, clean the ears, and inspect the eyes. After a portion of affection and attention, making sure of the strength of the emotional connection, the cat will sleep sweetly until the morning.

What not to do

If your cat meows, yells for no reason, and doesn’t let you sleep at night, never get up to see your pet. Even if the animal is hungry. Cats are great manipulators and, having achieved their goal, will constantly take advantage of the kindness of their owners. Therefore, the only right decision in such a situation is not to pay attention to the cat.

You should not lock your cat in a separate room. The animal will not understand why it was isolated from the rest of the family. The pet will become sad and lonely, and in order to attract attention, it will begin to make even more noise.

If the cat is awake at night, do not yell at him, much less hit him. This won't work and will only make the situation worse. The cat will do things out of spite.

It is impossible to force cats to sleep at night, but you need to try to do everything to ensure that the pet is active during the day. Following our advice, do not indulge in night awakenings, be patient, the kitten will eventually adapt to your schedule and sleep peacefully at night.

When owners get a shaggy pet, they want to see him as a calm, balanced and quiet friend. But sometimes the new tenant of the house turns out to be a real loudmouth. If he yells during the day, then it's not so bad. By the way, this is typical for representatives of the Oriental cat breed. But the pet’s nightly screams drive not only the cat’s owners crazy, but also their neighbors. What's the matter? How should owners act in such situations?

About the reasons for inappropriate behavior

First of all, you need to know why a cat yells at night. There can be many reasons for the problem:

How to calm a screaming cat

If a calm cat starts screaming at night for no reason, then first of all, consult a veterinarian. When the problem lies in a disease, the doctor will diagnose it and select individual therapy. As for sexual behavior, the urge to reproduce is much more difficult to overcome. But today there are many hormonal drugs that reduce the sexual activity of pets. Please note that they are hazardous to health if used regularly. Therefore, the best way to prevent sexual behavior is sterilization.

If your animal screams because it experiences attention deficit during the day, then you should find an opportunity to play with it as much as possible during the day, make it move, run, jump. Thus, an imitation of hunting is created. The predator calms down. And after the games you need to feed your pet, and better yet, meat. In this way, an imitation of the final stage of the hunt is also created - eating the prey, after which the instinct of a well-fed sleep should work. A cat that is fairly tired in the evening will sleep well at night. Don't let your pets sleep in the evening because they will want attention at night.

If the owners suspect that the animal's nocturnal screaming is caused not by illness, but by melancholy, boredom, or bad mood, then it is recommended that he drink herbal-based drugs, for example, Feliway, Kot Bayun. These products are completely safe for animal health. They have a mild soothing property.

Predicting cat behavior can be very difficult, and its reasons sometimes remain a deep mystery to the owner. Cats screaming at night is a very common phenomenon, but it is difficult to talk about clear reasons for it. Night “concerts” can be either a good old tradition for some pets or a completely sudden exception to the rule that stuns the owner. In this regard, the question of how to wean a cat from yelling in the morning requires special consideration.

Even owners of the most docile and quiet cats may one day encounter such an acoustic phenomenon. The desire to re-educate a cat and remove its need to scream is quite natural. We will talk about how to do this without harm to the pet’s health and the owner’s sleep in this article.

Some individuals wake up their owners with such precision and consistency that one might suspect that they have their own Swiss watch, with which the animals check the time of their vocal training. This is partly true, but only partly.

Cats do not have the abstract, abstract understanding of time that humans have. Time is important for them only from a utilitarian point of view - as an indicator of satisfaction of their needs. Therefore, the most common reason for morning cat “concerts” is the need for food. As soon as the sleep-deprived, irritated owner pours the treasured delicious granules into the cat’s bowl, he calms down and goes about his business.

Felines – wild or domesticated – always adapt their own rhythm of life to the conditions in which they find themselves. Having no idea about human daily routines, cats very quickly figure out at what time it makes sense for them to leave their homes and go outside, and at what hours it is preferable to stay in the shelter.

In the same way, domestic cats measure their behavior with their owner’s lifestyle. From this we can conclude that many cats that scream in the morning, one way or another, received positive reinforcement from the owner. Often such reinforcements are not noticed by the person himself, which leads to mutual misunderstanding.

Nocturnal lifestyle

Before moving on to the reasons for unwanted behavior in cats, it should be remembered that all felines are active primarily at night or in the early morning hours. This rhythm of life gave wild cats an advantage over prey and other predators, which were less active after sunset.

Cats' visual organs are also geared towards a nocturnal lifestyle; they function even worse in illuminated conditions than in twilight. In a word, even cat physiology is on the side of their activity from dusk to dawn.

However, the millennia lived side by side with humans were not in vain for cats. Pets, in the process of long evolution, have learned to adjust their rhythms of life to human rhythms. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to find cats sleeping side by side with humans. But you need to keep in mind that cat sleep has little in common with human sleep.

Instead of sleeping once a day, cats take short naps of a few minutes each.

Cats sleep very lightly and often wake up, since full, deep sleep is an unaffordable luxury for them. Wild cats couldn’t afford it and slept in “portions.” This sleep order was passed on to their distant domestic descendants.

The role of the owner in raising a cat

As already mentioned, unwanted behavior in pets is most often associated with unconscious reinforcements from the owner. A person should never forget that cats are very sensitive to the sequence of his actions. Even if the owner does not undertake to raise his pet, he still, one way or another, educates him, introducing him to the principles of desirable and undesirable behavior in his own way.

A common mistake an owner makes is to assume that the cat will be able to immediately understand what is required of him.

Of course, felines understand everything in their own way. Therefore, what seems elementary and self-evident to a person may not be so to a cat. For example, if on weekdays a cat comes to you when you are already up and pours food for him, then this behavior is reinforced in the form of food. However, on weekends, when the cat is already ready to feast, he encounters a sharp rebuff from the owner.

Such unmotivated, from a cat’s point of view, behavior leads to frustration for the pet. Cats are not familiar with the concept of weekends. The pets have learned their schedule, created in partnership with the owner, and their desire is very simple - to adhere to the “rules of the game” and get what they want. But as soon as they get used to the schedule, the owner breaks it and delays breakfast by two or three hours.

In such situations, cats inevitably experience stress - on a larger or smaller scale. Vengefulness, coupled with unsatisfied needs, sometimes pushes cats, depending on the degree of their depravity and ingenuity, to perform various tricks. All means available to the pet are used:

• Monotonous scratching of glass;
• Biting a person on different parts of the body;
• Pulling the blanket;
• Relieve yourself on the pillow;
• Ripping off wallpaper nearby;
• Sudden jumps on the owner.

Principles of raising a cat

Regardless of whether your pet wakes you up in the morning, eats violets or steals pie from the table, it is important for every owner to learn the basics of raising a pet. Only based on them can you resort to some additional manipulations suitable for each specific situation. Let's get acquainted with the list of pedagogical basics below:

1. Give up violence once and for all. Cats are our little brothers. They are inferior to us in strength and physical capabilities, so giving an animal a slap on the head or an accelerating kick will not be difficult. However, living under the same roof with a cat swept away from fear is not very pleasant. The animal's stress from the fact that it is about to commit an offense and again suffer corporal punishment will not have the best effect on its behavior. It is unlikely that even the most indifferent owner will want to live with a pet with a dilapidated nervous system;

   

2. In that place, at that time. If a pet commits some undesirable act, then “discussing” its behavior with it makes sense only in the next few minutes. An educational conversation will be most effective if the bully is caught red-handed. If you do not keep up with the cat and find only traces of his crime, then any methods of influence are useless, since the pet simply will not understand what all your efforts are aimed at;

   

3. Don't forget about the need to motivate rewards and punishments. Pets like to feel that their right actions are rewarded, so if the cat tried hard and followed the owner’s instructions, then you can pamper him with some kind of treat. If you see that the animal is showing increased resistance, then this should also be reflected in its domestic “benefits”. However, when limiting your cat to the same delicacies, do not forget about a sense of proportion. An exhausted cat is unlikely to learn life's lessons;

   

4. Maintain consistency in your actions. The more chaotic and unpredictable your actions are for your pet, the harder it will be for him to live with you. The educational approach involves developing a plan according to which the owner will move forward and guide the cat on the “true path.” Since the biological clock does not shift easily, this point is especially important for our article. Having set yourself the goal of limiting the cat from encroaching on your sleep, say, until eight o'clock in the morning, stay true to it. Any relaxation means that you will have to start all over again;

   

   The owner’s firm “no” should not turn into an uncertain “yes” after a couple of hours

5. Maintain subordination and distance. As you know, cats perceive people as members of their “local” pack and extend their influence to them. A person can effectively act from the position of a teacher only if he has previously taken the position of a leader, to whose instructions the pet listens. Failure to maintain distance and excessive gentleness will lead to the cat understanding his permissiveness, which will be very difficult to dissuade the animal from. To avoid such difficulties, it is advisable to prioritize the adoption of a kitten into the family;

   

6. Be prepared for the time and mental costs. Learning is never quick or smooth. Representatives of cats tend to follow their line and ensure that their needs are met. Therefore, in order to competently influence them, the owner will need qualities such as patience, perseverance and perseverance. Since we excluded the possibility of gross physical intervention in the first paragraph, the main emphasis should be placed on psychological influence and master’s authority.

   

   Cats are goal-oriented creatures; it will not be so easy to encourage them to give up unwanted needs.

Basic mistakes

It makes sense to start with the most common mistakes in raising a cat. As a rule, waking up early in the morning from intense cat meowing, the pet owner does not think about how pedagogical and ethical his next actions will be. Pillows, slippers, and an answering cry can be used - anything just to achieve a quick result.

Unfortunately, this result can hardly be called satisfactory. The cat is not an alarm clock, or any other mechanism that suddenly malfunctions and can be brought back to life by a blow to its “body”. Each detail of cat behavior has its own reasons, without attention to which the pet owner will not be able to cope with the behavior of the screamer.

Ignoring the real reasons for night and morning performances and using forceful methods can temporarily pacify the animal, or, in the worst case, turn it against you. Remember that every aggression - psychological or physical - towards the cat leads to depression, from which the pet will have to recover.

You should think twice before complicating your task. With careless actions, you will put the cat in a state of stress, and subsequently you will have to get rid of not only the morning cry, but also a number of other behavioral deviations. Therefore, several hours of morning sleep will have to be sacrificed during the period of retraining the pet.

Prohibited tricks

• spraying the animal with a spray bottle;
• raising your voice;
• transferring the cat to sleeping pills/tranquilizers;
• locking in another room.

Reasons for cats crying in the morning

Vocal exercises are not always a result of hunger or a desire for attention. The reasons for cat screams are varied - from the most harmless need to communicate with the owner to serious pathologies. Therefore, it is advisable for the owner of a vocal cat to monitor not only the fact of screams, but also their frequency, the conditions in which the screamer manifests itself, and so on. The most common reasons for cat arias are presented below.

Table 1. Causes of morning cat crying

Many owners lose sight of the likely painful underlying cause of cat cries and recognize pathologies in the later stages. To avoid such situations, it is advisable for cat owners to have basic knowledge about common ailments among their pets. You can find out more about the main symptoms and their symptoms on our portal.

Methods of influence

If the likelihood of physical or mental pathologies or sexual desire is excluded, then you can begin raising your pet in a way that is convenient for you. Without forgetting the basics of cat training listed above, feel free to take action:

• If your cat's nocturnal behavior is due to hunger, make sure your cat has a large dinner before going to bed and that there is enough food left in his bowls for the night. By providing your cat with the necessary food supplies, you will satisfy his basic need. Most problems with loud cats end at this simple point;

  

• Cats that experience an unusual surge of activity at night should be occupied with something energy-consuming during the day. Such individuals usually show lethargy during the daytime and prefer to wait out the zenith of the day somewhere in a darkened place. Remember that the cat's activity is in your hands. Of course, few working people can show their pet signs of attention during the working day. However, half an hour of playing with your pet after dinner will be enough to start shifting his waking hours. A laser pointer is perfect for such purposes;

  

• Pets that lack their own territory must be provided with this territory. It is sometimes advised to keep all doors open to allow the cat to explore the territory, since some individuals have a strong need to protect land. (Often this need is associated with increased anxiety). Not all owners can afford to allow a cat into every corner of the house, so for starters, it’s enough not to lock your pet in a limited space. The more you narrow a cat’s territory, the more she wants to break out of these boundaries;

  

• It is important for individuals in need of attention and care from the owner to hear and satisfy their needs. It is equally important to define the boundaries beyond which pets should not go. The owner can spend some time on his cat, but it is not in his interests to belong to her entirely. Cats are able to accept refusal without falling into hysterics if this refusal is given unambiguously and, as already noted, consistently. The following are suitable ways to satisfy a cat's need for an owner: 1) tactile signs of attention; 2) grooming – in addition to the pleasant sensations, brushing calms cats; 3) shared bed - some owners allow their pets to sleep under their blanket at night, but there are not many supporters of this method.

A kitten whose biological clock has not yet established itself requires special attention. Kittens are full of energy, which is even more difficult to cope with than the energy of adults. Read below for some tips on getting young fidgets into bed.

Video - Device that limits a cat's nighttime activity

Conclusion

As we have seen, there can be several reasons for nightly cat performances. Sometimes there are two or three at once. An effective effect on a pet is only possible if these causes are promptly and correctly recognized. A cat's cry is always a message that a pet addresses to its owner. The person’s task is to respond correctly to this message, and not to ignore it, forcibly silencing the cat. Once a cat is heard, it no longer needs to increase the volume in order to shout to the person.

. (RU)Dr. Elliott is a veterinarian with over thirty years of experience. She graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1987, and worked as a veterinary surgeon for 7 years. Afterward, Dr. Elliott worked as a veterinarian at an animal clinic for over a decade.

Number of sources used in this article: . You will find a list of them at the bottom of the page.

Does your cat like to go on mouse hunts at three in the morning? Is she jumping all over you? Or does it just meow to get you out of bed? Cats are masters of calculated actions. And this can lead to you losing the opportunity to get a good night's sleep. If you are having problems with your cat, there are some techniques that will allow you to take control of the situation.

Steps

A change of scenery

Find out why your cat bothers you at night. In most cats it is caused by basic, obvious reasons. It is very likely that the cat is bored or hungry, or may need you to clean the litter box.

Don't feed the cat. One of the worst things you can do is jump up at a cat's meow and feed the animal. In this case, the cat will think that meowing is the best way to get extra food, and will continue to behave this way. Waiting too long before final delivery is also not the best solution. This will teach the cat not to back down. For her, it will become something of a game of how long you can hold out before finally feeding her. Delayed gratification will be the object of her hunt, which completely satisfies her instincts. Your best bet is to never give up.

Remove sources of temptation. Cats love to jump from heights and tear things up. When you sleep, you become an ideal target for a cat. Look around the room and identify places where your cat might jump. Pay attention to high shelves, headboards, and cabinets that can be climbed on at night and jumped from on you. If possible, remove these items or rearrange them so that your cat cannot jump on you. If this is not possible, cover them with slippery cloth or stuff them with things that the cat can't knock off. This will discourage her from jumping into such places and jumping on you.

Minimize your cat's access to the pests it catches. If your cat wakes you up in the morning by bringing her prey, you should stop this behavior. Keep your cat indoors at night if she usually has the opportunity to go outside. This will prevent her from bringing you prey in the middle of the night. This option may not be suitable for you if your cat always goes outside to the toilet through the cat flap. In this case, leave your cat at night in the room that has a cat flap on the front door. This will not deprive her of the opportunity to go outside, but will not allow her to climb into your bedroom at night along with the captured mice.

If possible, keep your cat out of your bedroom. You can try locking her in another room at night. Provide her with a cozy, warm corner with some food and water and a comfortable place to sleep. This will get your cat out of your room for the night and give her a chance to get a good night's sleep as well.

• If you want to reward your cat for good behavior, then you can make a compromise. Keep your cat out of your bedroom on weekdays, but let her sleep with you on weekends, when you can at least get some sleep even if you're woken up during the night.

Cat training

1. Ignore her meows. When your cat starts meowing at night, you first need to check if everything is okay. If you conclude that she is not sick and has enough water and food, then she may simply want your attention. If this behavior repeats every night, you should ignore the cat. This may be a difficult task at first, but patience will pay off in the end. If you visit your cat every time she starts meowing, you will simply reinforce this negative behavior in her.

   Feed your cat before bed. You can feed your cat just before bed if she tends to wake you up at night to ask for food. It is not necessary to give a full portion, but the volume of food should be large enough for the cat to feel that it is more than just a treat. This goes well with the natural rhythm of life of cats. They hunt, eat, lick themselves, and then fall asleep to store up energy for the next hunt. If you feed your cat before going to bed, she will be full, and she will also want to sleep in order to gain energy for the next hunt. This will also teach your cat to understand that late feeding means bedtime.

   Play with your cat. One of the main reasons why a cat wakes at night is boredom. If your cat is alone all day, she will want to play and expend some energy when you come home. Try to set aside time to play with your cat every day. You can drag the toy along the floor so that the cat chases it. You can even give your cat something exciting to play with. As long as she has the opportunity to expend at least some of her unstoppable energy, she will tend to sleep better at night.

   Wean your cat off the habit of biting. If your cat likes to bite your arms or legs, try to stop this from happening at night. Cover yourself completely with a blanket or sheet before going to bed. You can also put socks on your feet so that the cat does not see the movement of your fingers and does not mistake them for prey. Give her something else to chew.

   • Provide your cat with catnip toys, sisal balls, scratching posts, and anything she likes to chew on.

2. Be firm. Don't change your decisions. If you decide to let your cat out, whether just from your bedroom or from several rooms of the house, stand your ground. Once the cat understands that you are adamant, it will come to terms with the new circumstances. If you don’t resist, the cat will understand that it can achieve whatever it wants.

You can often hear the following from cat owners: everything is fine, the animal is both affectionate and neat, there’s just one problem - the cat wakes up at night. Minutes or even hours of sleep stolen by your pet, especially before work, lead to fatigue and irritability. Is it possible to do anything in this situation?

First of all, you need to realize that by purchasing an animal, you are entering into voluntary coexistence with a representative of a different biological species with behavior different from that of humans. The cat simply does not want, and often cannot, immediately accept your rules of the game and obey the established schedule.

Night is a time of activity

A cat's instincts tell them that the best time to hunt is at night. Accordingly, the animal’s biological clock is adjusted in such a way that a significant proportion of the total activity occurs during the dark time of day.

Zoologists have found that a domestic cat sleeps from 12 to 16 hours a day. Moreover, these indicators are strictly individual and depend not so much on the age and breed, but on the characteristics of the pet’s character and lifestyle. Some cats are quite capable of spending only about 4 hours a day in wakefulness.

If you subtract from this time the periods of eating, visiting the toilet and communicating with the owner, there is not much left. And cats spend this “little bit” very actively - they run, play, pester people and other pets, and try to climb somewhere. In general, they waste a lot of energy in a short period of time, causing legitimate resentment if this activity occurs while you are sleeping.

How to deal with this situation and is it possible, in principle, to wean a cat from waking up at night? Here are some recommendations:

• Put away “loud” toys at night. That is, everything that a cat can chase across the floor, making noise.
• Close the door to the bedroom, after making sure your pet has free access to water and the litter box.
• Try to ignore the animal, showing with all your appearance that you do not intend to become a participant in its fun - having lost interest, the pet will sooner or later leave you alone.

You should not punish your cat for waking you up at night - for her, playing in the dark is completely natural, and she simply will not be able to understand the reasons for your dissatisfaction, but trust in an owner who behaves incomprehensibly and aggressively can be seriously undermined .

Give your pet a run before bed!

And one more, perhaps, main piece of advice on how to wean a cat from waking up at night: try to move his biological clock in the right direction. In practice, this means that just before you go to bed, spend 20-30 minutes actively playing with your animal.

Chasing a bow on a thread, playing with a feather or special cat toys - anything will do, as long as the pet splashes out the reserves of energy that it saves for the night. It is this simple method that most often allows owners to sleep peacefully until the morning in the company of a tired but happy pet.

What canned food tastes best for cats?

RESEARCH ATTENTION! You and your cat can take part in it! If you live in Moscow or the Moscow region and are ready to regularly observe how and how much your cat eats, and also remember to write it all down, they will bring you FREE WET FOOD SETS.

Project for 3–4 months. Organizer - Petkorm LLC.