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- Feb 1, 2018
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My 6 month old, Clove, is EXTEREMELY high-energy and has been an absolute nightmare at night. She is driving me crazy! I am writing this at 7am after maybe 3 hours of sleep all night. 
I live in a studio apartment where the bed is upstairs in a loft, so there’s no way I can shut her out while I sleep. Clove presumably sleeps for the 9-10 hours a day while I’m at work and then is awake and playing almost all the rest of the time. She has two different kinds of circuit track toys, a variety of mousies, kick toys, catnip toys, her favorite plushie toy, balls to roll around, a huge cat tree, three other scratchers, a cardboard box maze, fresh water and food to nibble on overnight, a clean litter box, and plenty of room to run around and play. I play with her with a wand toy every night, getting her running and jumping until she is exhausted laying on her side and panting. She and Chilli play CONSTANTLY throughout the day, wrestling and chasing each other at top speed. I also play fetch with her plushie toy for as long as she will keep bringing it back. She gets a nice big meal of wet food right before bed. She gets plenty of cuddles and attention and treats whenever I’m home. I never play with her upstairs because I want her to associate playtime with downstairs only. NONE of that has helped with the nighttime insanity.
At nighttime, she doesn’t want to play with ANY of the fun toys downstairs, eve though during the daytime she’s great at entertaining herself. She doesn’t want to play with Chilli either. She doesn’t want pets or food or attention. The only thing she wants, seemingly, is to find as many naughty activities as she can upstairs in the loft and do them as loudly as possible. I’ve had to hide my phone charger and charge it in the morning instead because she will so adamantly attack the cords (even with bitter apple sprayed all over it to the point where I was gagging from the fumes—didn’t seem to faze her at all!). She will bring her plushie toy upstairs and throw it at the wall and then bodyslam into the wall to get it over and over and over. (This is a loft, so it’s close quarters—a couple feet from my face at most.) If I put the plushie downstairs, she will run and get it and bring it back up again. She will attack my extra pillow that she couldn’t care less about during the day and scratch it as loudly as she can. She will simply jump up against the walls as high as she can for fun and then race in circles around and around the bed. Last night she started attacking and biting the sides of mattress, something she has NEVER done during the day. She also will attack my arms and legs—just playfully, but she does not do this AT ALL during the day and is normally very gentle. The worst thing is that I have a floor-to-ceiling barrier constructed to keep kitties from going over the bannister of the loft. She has left it completely alone for months... but now she has started to attack that too. It’s fairly flimsy (but it’s the best I can do right now) so I am very worried that she will destroy it and fall over the edge. Again, she doesn’t touch it during the day and is sleeping peacefully up in the loft when I get home from work. Even in the rare moments she is quiet at night, I’m not sleeping well because I always have to worry about if she’s quietly chewing through the barrier. All of this isn’t just for an hour or two—it’s CONSTANT. For hours and hours with no sign of her getting tired.
Most of the time, she knows and responds to the word “no” and a stern voice, and downstairs during the daytime she is an easy kitten to deal with. If she starts messing with the TV cords, I just tell her “no” firmly and she will slink away and then happily go and play with a mousie or something. But at night it’s almost like she feeds off the word “no”! She will stare at me purring and then sink her teeth into the phone charger cord in front of my eyes while I tell her “no”! I even tried a spray bottle briefly for the dangerous stuff—cords and biting the barrier—and at first it worked perfectly within two or three sprays. She didn’t touch either of them for days. I thought my problems were solved. But then she decided the water is fun and likes to pounce on the spray bottle and play in the water, and it doesn’t faze her to get sprayed. So much for that.
I am really not sure what else I can do. I already tire her out as much as I possibly can through playtime and am interacting with her nonstop. I’m fine with her being awake and playful—she is a kitten after all—but I just want her to play with the menagerie of toys DOWNSTAIRS like she does in the daytime. When she’s upstairs it almost seems like she’s bored and is just looking for something to do... but bringing toys upstairs is not an option because it is even more annoying and loud. Even when she brings her soft plushie up here she manages to make it as noisy as possible.
Anyway, all of that to say... help! I need some suggestions! Unfortunately, getting another kitten is not an option in my small apartment.
I live in a studio apartment where the bed is upstairs in a loft, so there’s no way I can shut her out while I sleep. Clove presumably sleeps for the 9-10 hours a day while I’m at work and then is awake and playing almost all the rest of the time. She has two different kinds of circuit track toys, a variety of mousies, kick toys, catnip toys, her favorite plushie toy, balls to roll around, a huge cat tree, three other scratchers, a cardboard box maze, fresh water and food to nibble on overnight, a clean litter box, and plenty of room to run around and play. I play with her with a wand toy every night, getting her running and jumping until she is exhausted laying on her side and panting. She and Chilli play CONSTANTLY throughout the day, wrestling and chasing each other at top speed. I also play fetch with her plushie toy for as long as she will keep bringing it back. She gets a nice big meal of wet food right before bed. She gets plenty of cuddles and attention and treats whenever I’m home. I never play with her upstairs because I want her to associate playtime with downstairs only. NONE of that has helped with the nighttime insanity.At nighttime, she doesn’t want to play with ANY of the fun toys downstairs, eve though during the daytime she’s great at entertaining herself. She doesn’t want to play with Chilli either. She doesn’t want pets or food or attention. The only thing she wants, seemingly, is to find as many naughty activities as she can upstairs in the loft and do them as loudly as possible. I’ve had to hide my phone charger and charge it in the morning instead because she will so adamantly attack the cords (even with bitter apple sprayed all over it to the point where I was gagging from the fumes—didn’t seem to faze her at all!). She will bring her plushie toy upstairs and throw it at the wall and then bodyslam into the wall to get it over and over and over. (This is a loft, so it’s close quarters—a couple feet from my face at most.) If I put the plushie downstairs, she will run and get it and bring it back up again. She will attack my extra pillow that she couldn’t care less about during the day and scratch it as loudly as she can. She will simply jump up against the walls as high as she can for fun and then race in circles around and around the bed. Last night she started attacking and biting the sides of mattress, something she has NEVER done during the day. She also will attack my arms and legs—just playfully, but she does not do this AT ALL during the day and is normally very gentle. The worst thing is that I have a floor-to-ceiling barrier constructed to keep kitties from going over the bannister of the loft. She has left it completely alone for months... but now she has started to attack that too. It’s fairly flimsy (but it’s the best I can do right now) so I am very worried that she will destroy it and fall over the edge. Again, she doesn’t touch it during the day and is sleeping peacefully up in the loft when I get home from work. Even in the rare moments she is quiet at night, I’m not sleeping well because I always have to worry about if she’s quietly chewing through the barrier. All of this isn’t just for an hour or two—it’s CONSTANT. For hours and hours with no sign of her getting tired.
Most of the time, she knows and responds to the word “no” and a stern voice, and downstairs during the daytime she is an easy kitten to deal with. If she starts messing with the TV cords, I just tell her “no” firmly and she will slink away and then happily go and play with a mousie or something. But at night it’s almost like she feeds off the word “no”! She will stare at me purring and then sink her teeth into the phone charger cord in front of my eyes while I tell her “no”! I even tried a spray bottle briefly for the dangerous stuff—cords and biting the barrier—and at first it worked perfectly within two or three sprays. She didn’t touch either of them for days. I thought my problems were solved. But then she decided the water is fun and likes to pounce on the spray bottle and play in the water, and it doesn’t faze her to get sprayed. So much for that.
I am really not sure what else I can do. I already tire her out as much as I possibly can through playtime and am interacting with her nonstop. I’m fine with her being awake and playful—she is a kitten after all—but I just want her to play with the menagerie of toys DOWNSTAIRS like she does in the daytime. When she’s upstairs it almost seems like she’s bored and is just looking for something to do... but bringing toys upstairs is not an option because it is even more annoying and loud. Even when she brings her soft plushie up here she manages to make it as noisy as possible.
Anyway, all of that to say... help! I need some suggestions! Unfortunately, getting another kitten is not an option in my small apartment.
. And you play with her lots. Once she calms down she's free. May scream at first or body slam the door, but then become resigned to the fact? Worth a try. With a fan going for you for noise masking. And a towel in there with your scent on it?
