Is There Any Way For Me To Stop My Cat From Waking Me Up 6 Am In The Morning?

[Sammiches]

So I work until 11pm at night and get home around 12am, then go to bed by 1am.

I feed my cat, play with her, and take the time to wind down before bed. In most cases she's ready for bed as well within 30 minutes of me sleeping which means I usually fall asleep by 2am. However once 6am shows up, she is off sprinting and meowing an hour at a time then takes like a 10 mins break before going at it again. I feed her around 3 ounces before she goes to bed and play with her and tiring her out several times passed the huffing and puffing stage. None of this however can keep her from doing that daily 6am stuff though.

My cat is around 9 1/2~10 months right now so part of me think it's her kitten stage. Or is this a problem in general for cat behaviors? Leaving her out of the room is not an option as she'll howl instead all night which is slightly worse.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Cats are crepuscular by nature, that is, their most active times are dawn and dusk. In the wild, that's when they would be hunting. HOWEVER, your cat isn't in the wild now, and needs to learn to adjust. Try making small adjustments in your routine...first play (she's hunting) for several minutes, wear her out. THEN feed, then bed. That's the natural order of a cat's world...hunt, kill, eat, groom, sleep. Anything that promotes that will mean more and better sleep for the cat. Also, when she begins her "WAKE UP" routine, you must, must, must totally ignore her, not matter what. It will take several days, up to a couple of weeks, but she will stop. No cat, ever, does something indefinitely unless there is a payoff for them! They are far to pragmatic for that.

 

[Sammiches]

Thanks for the tip! I've actually been doing the play/eat thing backwards, I hope changing it will add hours to my sleep. Unfortunately for me though when she wakes me up at 6am, I use that time every time to go to the bathroom, not sure if this is encouraging her to wake me up at that time.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Probably, but you can't fight mother nature!

 

[Kefa]

Unfortunately for me though when she wakes me up at 6am, I use that time every time to go to the bathroom, not sure if this is encouraging her to wake me up at that time.

Cats are really into routines. She probably now thinks it is her JOB to wake you up at 6 am to go to the bathroom.

Homer and I have reached a 6 am truce. It used to be 3 am, but I have managed by increments to get him to 6 am. I get up at 6, give him a bit of breakfast, throw some food out for the birds, use the bathroom, and go back to bed!. He will let me sleep till about 10 am this way.

Since his evening meal is between 8 and 10 pm after playtime, he is hungry again by 6 am from all his night patrolling of house, which he does very quietly unless there is trouble (raccoons, possums, bugs, water heaters acting up, ect) He sleeps between 1 pm and 7pm. Your cat is probably sleeping while you are at work and might be staying up all night keeping an eye on things while you sleep.

 

[Ceracera]

I usually ignore them or put them outside. They catch on eventually. But you have to be consistent and do it everytime they wake you up.

Most of my cats end up sitting somewhere and staring at me. When they see my eyes open, they come to me. It's creepy sometimes.

Cookie goes to bed the same time i do. She gets up at about 4am.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Cats are really into routines. She probably now thinks it is her JOB to wake you up at 6 am to go to the bathroom.

That is SO TRUE! And just like a cat!

 

[J. A. Vann]

I have 3 cats two are 7 years old & our newest is 1 year old! The 2 older ones have been waking us up for 7 years! Ignoring helps a little but the little one caught on right away! My husband gets up for work at 5:30 every morning, once in a while he gets to sleep in for an hour or so but we still get our wake up calls at 5:30 or earlier! We don’t get a break on weekends either!
We have done our best to ignore all of the noise these 3 make & 90% ofvthe time it doesn’t work! They not only meow loudly but they walk all over us & even meow right in our ears!!! Our little one is a Burmese & has a very loud meow our Siamese has a very soft little meow & the ginger rescue cat has the loudest shrillest earpiercing meow I have ever heard! Our mornings are this mixed cat chorus!!! Sometimes after about a half hour of getting ignored they will just lay down & go back to sleep with us! Then it starts up again & it does not stop until they are fed! So we have become slaves to our cats & one of us gets up & feeds them...then we go back to sleep for however long before the alarm goes off! They all caught on to this behavior instantly! We have tried everything to get them to knock it off with no luck! So we just learned to live with it! There are even mornings that we have slept through it!! If you find a good way to stop this please let me know!!!

 

[maggiedemi]

I think the biggest problem is daylight savings time. Demi doesn't understand and still tries to get me up at the old time, he cries for the entire hour. I wish they would do away with that. Once a cat gets on a schedule, they don't like to switch.

 

[basscat]

Set your alarm for 5:55

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Set your alarm for 5:55

And within two weeks, your cat will get you up at 5:50! They catch onto those little tricks!

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I have 3 cats two are 7 years old & our newest is 1 year old! The 2 older ones have been waking us up for 7 years! Ignoring helps a little but the little one caught on right away! My husband gets up for work at 5:30 every morning, once in a while he gets to sleep in for an hour or so but we still get our wake up calls at 5:30 or earlier! We don’t get a break on weekends either!
We have done our best to ignore all of the noise these 3 make & 90% ofvthe time it doesn’t work! They not only meow loudly but they walk all over us & even meow right in our ears!!! Our little one is a Burmese & has a very loud meow our Siamese has a very soft little meow & the ginger rescue cat has the loudest shrillest earpiercing meow I have ever heard! Our mornings are this mixed cat chorus!!! Sometimes after about a half hour of getting ignored they will just lay down & go back to sleep with us! Then it starts up again & it does not stop until they are fed! So we have become slaves to our cats & one of us gets up & feeds them...then we go back to sleep for however long before the alarm goes off! They all caught on to this behavior instantly! We have tried everything to get them to knock it off with no luck! So we just learned to live with it! There are even mornings that we have slept through it!! If you find a good way to stop this please let me know!!!

I wish I did know what to tell you, but you are pretty much stuck. The thing is, they are conditioned for 5:30. They don't get "5:30 on MOST days, but not THESE days!" When you all are trying to sleep in, your cats are shrieking, "BUT NO! You said 5:30! YOU DID! YOU SAID IT!"

 

[Kefa]

It boggles the mind how cats tell time so accurately.

 

[danteshuman]

Maybe my constant pain help with this ... in all fairness though I was never a morning person. So I am never feeding them, playing with them and barely cuddling them when I wake up until my pain meds start kicking in. It is more of a groggy "hey you are there, give me an hour and I'll be human." kind of response. My best advice is to give her a little dry food to tide her through until you wake up & some interactive toys that you rotate (all conveniently located not in your bedroom along with an extra litter box.) If she wakes you up, calmly kick her out & ignore her no matter what until your usual wake up time. Expect meowing & door rattling for a few nights - weeks. That is why I like kicking them out of my bedroom & into a spare bedroom when training a cat to let you sleep. That way you have 2 doors between you to help muffle the noise & they can't rattle your bedroom door. I also like training them one cat at a time. You can train her for 2 weeks - 8 weeks maximum if you are consistent or you can put up with being woken up for the rest of your life. Even my punk only took 2 weeks to figure it out (he REALLY wanted to sleep with me like his brother was allowed to.)

 

[Sammiches]

It boggles the mind how cats tell time so accurately.

It would seem that their eyes are so good at seeing light that ninjas utilized cat's eyes to estimate of time of day. Information suggests that the name is called Cat's eye sundial.

Anyways an update - Feeding my cat after play seems to have added roughly an hour to my sleep, this is a huge gain!

 

[danteshuman]

Sammiches, YEAH!!! Extra sleep I hope it works out. The only thing I would add is to make sure you are not feeding her when you first wake up. I would make it part of my morning routine. Where you get dressed, start the coffee then feed her. That way she associates coffee with food, not you getting up = dinner time.

 

[Sammiches]

Sammiches, YEAH!!! Extra sleep I hope it works out. The only thing I would add is to make sure you are not feeding her when you first wake up. I would make it part of my morning routine. Where you get dressed, start the coffee then feed her. That way she associates coffee with food, not you getting up = dinner time.

Yeah I think I may switch that up a bit later on so that she doesn't link me waking up = food. Though she probably has already done that lol.

 

[Leo_The_Cat]

When I adopted my 6 month old kitten (he was 4 months back then), he would start playing around 0200-0300 and 0600-0800 in the morning. He did that for several weeks.

Now he goes right to sleep when I go to bed at around 2300-2400 (he's sleeping in my bedroom). And he doesn't wake up until I do in the morning (he might wake up during the night to go to the toilet or to eat, though. But he goes right back to sleep).

Some of the things I did to change his behaviour:

- Play and feed him before bedtime. He would lay down on the floor when he'd had enough.
- Follow the same routine every night. He calms down when I start turning out the lights.
- I'd totally ignore him when he started to run and jump around in the middle of the night (he either wanted to play or get my attention. When that strategy failed, I think he eventually gave up).
- Make sure he feels comfortable: In the beginning, he felt a bit insecure (coming to a new home and all that stuff), so his nightly activity might also have been triggered by nervousness.
- He was castrated when he was around 6 months. A few weeks after that he started to calm down during evenings/nights.

 

[Leo_The_Cat]

My kitten is 7 months old, not 6 (typo).

 

[Kitti]

6am!!!!


Thats a lie in for me...

3am my alarm cat goes off!