Cat Meows At Night

Hi everyone.

We have an indoor/outdoor cat who we all love very much. She's nice, funny and keeps us good company. During the day, she gets inside/goes outside by her wish. If she wants to come inside, she climbs in the window of our house, if she wants to go out, she just meows at the front door. That's all fine, we've gotten used to it and the meowing during the day to let her out does not bother us that much.

The problem is her meowing at night whenever she wants to go out. She has access to her litter box, food and water all the time so we know that her physical needs are satisfied. She simply wants to go outside. At 3 AM. And she politely lets us know that by meowing until someone in the household gets up.

Is there anything we can do to stop this behavior? I know cats aren't dogs and can't be trained as well... but this constant 3AM/4AM meowing is really bothering us.

Forgot to add that she's spayed, if that information helps.

Well... what's happening is she's the one who's training you lol!

What you want to do is to not get up or give her attention when she meows in the middle of the night. It might be hard and take a while, but every time one of you get up, she's learning that meowing gets her what she wants and she'll do it again the next time, but even longer.

How long and how much do you play with her during the day? Does she sleep a lot then? It might help to play with her and really tire her out during the day so she sleeps the whole night through. Having an extra play session and giving her a small snack before you go to bed can help too.

Okay, we will try with this new approach + playing with her even more. Hopefully it'll work out.
Thank you so much for taking time to reply to my post!

No problem!! And welcome to the forums!

I experience the same. However, I would be very glad if my tomcat starts to meow at 500 in the night (when I love to work) instead of 300. Not successful in this re-planning, so I gave up.

I pay no attention to him at 300, but he keeps meowing for a couple of minutes and then he goes back to "hunting".

I noticed he is not "talking" always: they are days when he is quiet and days when he talks enormously.

To solve this problem, ignore her. We have had similar problems with one or both of our cats waking us up during the night or early am for one reason or another. We do have one that meows to go outside. The only thing you can do is ignore it. Give it two weeks or so and it will usually stop. You may need ear plugs, and/or a fan to get through the two weeks but hang in there. She does it because she gets a response. Do not respond at all, don't yell, don't move, don't throw something, just pretend like you are sleeping.