My cat won’t let me sleep

[Erikab]

During the day, she hates to be touched or pet or held. But for some weird reason at night, it’s always around 3:30, she wakes me up, meowing NONSTOP until I pet her. And I’ll pet her for a few minutes and then fall asleep, and then she just keeps meowing over and over until I pet her again. This goes on for literal hours. I feel so bad to lock her out of the room, because obviously she’s wanting attention and I have another cat that sleeps on the bed and he’s fine. But I don’t know what to do. She paces back and forth over me, lays down on my head, gets up, plays with my hair, paws at my face, etc. All while nonstop meowing. I work during the day so I think maybe she just wants attention. But I try to give her some when I get home and she acts like she hates me until late at night of course. Im literally exhausted lol. I have two cats, so she’s never alone and they play a lot together. I don’t know what to do. Any advice??

 

[ArtNJ]

Lock her out of the room at night, because its going to be massively difficult to stop the behavior otherwise. You'd need to ignore the cat for maybe weeks, and that sounds pretty close to impossible.

Sounds like its become a little ritual for her, seeking and getting attention when you are quiet, chill and always in the same place. By contrast, when you come home from work, you've got a lot to do, your moving around a lot, maybe changing clothes, making dinner, etc. So there is no real quiet time and no real ritual. I suggest maybe after dinner, once your done with whatever chores and ready to relax, try to lure her to the couch or chair where you are watching tv/using phone, whatever, using a call noise, tapping even with treats if need be. The point is to teach her that there is another time and place where you are quiet, chill and receptive to petting her, and build up a new ritual.

 

[LTS3]

TCS has an article with tips:

How To Stop My Cat From Waking Me Up At Night (step-by-step Plan) – TheCatSite Articles
How To Set Healthy Boundaries For Your Cat – TheCatSite Articles

Petting the cat just reinforces the behavior. The cat now associates bothering you at 3am with attention. Ignore the behavior if you can and give a firm NO to the really annoying ones like paws in the face. It's fine to lock the one cat out of the bedroom. It'll help stop the negative behavior. Do you leave food out overnight? Some cats get hungry and will bother you until they get fed.

 

[danteshuman]

Cats are most active at sunrise & sunset.

My vote? Play with her, then feed her (& maybe give her some dry food to crunch on at 3 am.) If she wakes you up, calmly put her in cat room (run a fan or two in your bedroom) and do let her in until your morning alarm goes off! Also do not feed her until after you shower or make coffee so the connection of wakeuphuman=getfed is not there!

 

[maggie101]

Or use a cat food timer. She may simply be hungry. I assume she has a tower and chew toys and can run around. Depending on how old she is its also play time for. Or ignore it. She will figure out she's not getting what she wants

 

[LightningM]

This same thing is literally happening to me! I give my cat a morning and a nighttime play routine and feed her upon waking up (right after playtime) then I do the same at night time a couple hours before bed. I will allow her to sleep on my bed with me too and she has the whole bed to herself (no other cats) but for some reason it started happening about a week ago that she will wake me up at least once in the night around 3-330am - 4am and start meowing at me. I ignore her but she's relentless. She will start swatting my face lightly to get my attention or start jumping all over my dressers to start making sound and batting things around to get my attention. She appears to want to play. Mind you I also have provided her with a lot of independent toys in her own designated spare bedroom so I feel like she has everything she needs. I've also left her some food in the bowl at night in case she gets hungry. I think its play/attention related but I'm still allowing her in my bed at night to sleep so you'd think she'd be okay with the company. I should also mention she is 7 months old so I'm also thinking she has a lot of kitten energy. Any thoughts?