Cat doesn’t let me sleep at night- tried everything

[vthecat]

I have two female cats. One is an orange tabby and the other is a calico. Both rescued from a shelter. I love my babies so much! But I’m having problems with the orange tabby not letting my husband and I sleep at night. We allow her in the room all day when we are not sleeping. But at night, we prefer to have them out of our room because they disturb our sleep especially the orange tabby. She would walk over our heads and jump around on the bed. She also gets on the dresser and starts knocking things off. We wouldn’t mind if she slept on the bed but it would be better if she stayed still. When she sleeps on our bed usually by our feet, we stretch our legs and she attacks our leg. So it’s best she stays out of the room during the night.

But then she starts crying and scratches the door especially the bottom of the door. I bought special tape to prevent damage to the bottom of the door since we rent. I just hear she goes deep in scratching and clawing.We got a spray bottle to stop her from doing that. She runs and comes back again. Meanwhile my calico cat is quiet and let us sleep.It’s so nice lol. She gives us space and when we are ready for the day, she is welcomed in our room.

We play with the tabby before going to sleep. We spend time with her. I don’t know what to do anymore because it’s exhausting. I have sleep problems and this makes it worse. I’m usually concerned over damage on the door.Any advice would be helpful.

both are spayed^

 

[fionasmom]

Train Your Cat to Let You Sleep - Jackson Galaxy

These are a couple of very popular responses from Jackson Galaxy.

 

[rubysmama]

V vthecat : I feel for you and your husband. Sleep deprivation isn't fun.

Here's a TCS article that might have some tips for you:
How To Stop My Cat From Waking Me Up At Night (step-by-step Plan) – TheCatSite Articles

And also one on 5 Reasons To Never Spray Water On Your Cat [Or otherwise punish them] – TheCatSite Articles, since I noticed you've tried doing that to stop her scratching the door.

 

[sunny578]

I have had a lot of waker-uppers. It's so hard

I would try doing what you can to protect the door and then getting some ear plugs (silicone work best for me) and sleep headphones(I plug mine into my phone and play some kind of white noise) or whatever other noise blockers you would need to sleep through the chaos. Then, maybe after a few weeks, you could try sleeping without the noise blockers and see if she still meows at the door.

You could also try putting a cat tree in your room by the window if you'd like to see if they could learn to hang out in the room at night while you sleep.

Good luck! Sleep deprivation is so hard

 

[ArtNJ]

I favor the method described by sunny578 , ie totally ignoring the meowing and making sure to provide zero reinforcement of the behavior, which usually works within a few weeks or less assuming the cat is not being a PITA because of hunger or a medical issue like dementia. HOWEVER, it must be noted that over the years I've seen the rare poster that swears they do not engage with the cat at night in any fashion, and nonetheless the cat never stopped meowing at the door for hours and is still doing it months later. I think its still worth a try, because as painful as it is, it does usually work.

I try to avoid the squirt gun debate and focus on the practical issue. Spraying the cat never seemed to work for me. Some say opening the door for any purpose, even that, provides reinforcement. More importantly, cats are more than fast enough to avoid getting wet as well, and what are you going to do, chase the cat at 3 am? Its the same thing if you have an "enemy" cat in your yard causing problems -- the cat will gladly run away and avoid you, and come right back later, not bothered at all. In any event, for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be a good way to modify this behavior.

I am not personally a big believer that it is possible for everyone to get every cat to sleep with you peacefully. I mean, there are people that teach cats to go on hikes and walk around town while sitting on their shoulder. That doesn't mean I can do that with my cat.

 

[FeebysOwner]

The only thing I could add to the above is if this is new behavior, then there is a reason for it. Be that health related, or something (new or unusual to her) going on outside your home at night that is affecting your tabby's behavior.

If an older cat, it could be some loss of sight, and using night lights in the area of the home that your cats spend at night might be helpful to your tabby.

Placing a cat bed in your room might be just enough. It might take some time for her to adjust to using her bed and not yours, but it just might work. Otherwise, you could try an enclosed bed that you place her in where she can see you, in case there is some sort of insecurity issue going on. A heartbeat toy or a ticking clock is sometimes soothing to a cat as well.

 

[syzygycat]

The hands off approach is to close the door and put a motion activated pet deterrent in front of the door. Products like Ssscat or Stayaway are battery powered motion senser attached to a can of compressed air, the hiss and burst of air scares them away, and is pretty hard for a human to hear behind a closed door.

Ideally a pet owner would use fear based deterrents or locking the cat out as a last option. Playing with her before sleep might just be riling her up, playing with her a little earlier and feeding her right before you go to bed might be enough to get her on the right schedule. Also, It's important she has her own place to sleep (where she won't get kicked or rolled on), like a small bench next to the bed with a cat bed on it. I let my cats stay in the room until they get disruptive, if they're pawing or jumping on us they get locked out, if its just noise I put earplugs in, most cats stop howling for attention once the realize they can't get it. If all else fails... get the motion sensor spray.

And lastly, cat's knocking down small objects is normal cat behavior, maybe don't leave things on the dresser you don't want knocked down.