Wife is pregnant cat meows in the morning

Tlifter

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One of my 2 cats meows a lot outside my wife and my bedroom door every morning and occasionally at night. Before my wife was pregnant if it was up to me I would just let her in and let her sleep with us, but my wife has never wanted her on the bed especially when we are sleeping. Now my wife is half way through her pregnancy so I still have time, but I need to know a way to keep the cat happy so she doesn’t wake up the baby when he arrives. Our other cat sometimes plays with her, but he usually just likes watching her. He’s very sweet, but he’s lazy.
 

ArtNJ

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If you have ruled out causes like hunger, usually (usually) if you ignore a cat scratching or meowing at your door at night, they will stop. The problem is that any little interaction you have with the cat may reinforce the behavior, sometimes it can take weeks of ignoring a behavior, and sometimes (rarely) it doesn't stop at all.

So step one would be to consider what you feed the cat when to rule out hunger being the problem. Step two would be to never open that door until your alarm goes off. Step three, if that doesn't work within a few weeks...um, got nothing, sorry.
 

Lari

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Your baby may already be up super early in the morning, lol.

This is not the popular opinion on parenting forums that are all about pitch dark and white noise machines, but babies can get used to sleeping through noises same as any of us. I had an apartment once by train tracks and at first the trains at night woke me, but I ended up sleeping through them. I have a 4 month old, and she no longer stirs at night if a cat gets the zoomies or starts scratching on something for food.
 
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Tlifter

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If you have ruled out causes like hunger, usually (usually) if you ignore a cat scratching or meowing at your door at night, they will stop. The problem is that any little interaction you have with the cat may reinforce the behavior, sometimes it can take weeks of ignoring a behavior, and sometimes (rarely) it doesn't stop at all.

So step one would be to consider what you feed the cat when to rule out hunger being the problem. Step two would be to never open that door until your alarm goes off. Step three, if that doesn't work within a few weeks...um, got nothing, sorry.
I used to give her attention at night, but night time issues have mostly stopped. I give them Greenies at 10pm as an evening snack then go to bed. It’s mostly in the morning when she wakes us.
 

ArtNJ

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I used to give her attention at night, but night time issues have mostly stopped. I give them Greenies at 10pm as an evening snack then go to bed. It’s mostly in the morning when she wakes us.
Even if you don't open the door, you probably talk to your wife if the cat meowing wakes you both up. Who knows if the cat considers that an accomplishment on some level? Yay! They are up now, I did it! So talk in sign language for (an hour and a half?), use the phone on silent mode, hide under the covers, w/e. Landshark may go away eventually :)

Using humor because I know how hard it is. Not an easy situation. Wish I had better suggestions, but if you can find away to ignore the cat, it really might well extinguish the behavior.

Honestly, I've got a furnished basement. I put my cats in there for the night, so maybe its hypocritical for me to give advice, but I did struggle with these issues years ago. These issues are hard.

I can tell you what absolutely doesn't work. Opening the door and trying to use negative reinforcement, shouting, using water and the like, even if you were willing to do that, does not work at all. Some say that is because the cat sees any interaction at all with someone it likes as positive reinforcement. I dunno, but for whatever reason, it doesn't work. We've had varous posters try it, including me when I was young, desperate and didn't know better, and no one has ever reported it working.
 
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suzeanna

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Maybe you could try pushing their dinner even later to maximize their full/sleepy time? If feasible, you could give a small pre-dinner to tide them over until final/big dinner.
 
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Tlifter

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Each day they get breakfast at 7:30am that includes Greenies, at around 1:30pm they get just Greenies, at 6:30pm they get dinner without Greenies, then at around 10pm they get only Greenies. I follow the directions on the Greenies label (6 pieces 3x/day for each cat). Both cats are around their healthy bodyweight as the vet suggested to me. She might actually be 2lbs heavier.
 

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My cat needs to lose a good bit of weight, so her current meal schedule is: 30g WF (wet food) at 630am, 20g WF at 12pm, 20g WF at 5pm, 35-40g WF at 10pm, 4g kibble via timed feeder at 3am. She gets 1-2 greenies after each meal (I cut them into ~6 pcs each and put them into a puzzle feeder). She also gets a few greenies throughout the day (cut up) which she earns by catching the laser pointer. Anyway that's all to say that she's always pretty "fed" now, and creating 2 dinnertimes (5 and 10) helped me a lot -- I used to just do 730pm.
 

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Each day they get breakfast at 7:30am that includes Greenies, at around 1:30pm they get just Greenies, at 6:30pm they get dinner without Greenies, then at around 10pm they get only Greenies. I follow the directions on the Greenies label (6 pieces 3x/day for each cat). Both cats are around their healthy bodyweight as the vet suggested to me. She might actually be 2lbs heavier.
That's a long time at night without food - basically 13 hours with 6 treats in between at 10pm. Our feeding schedule is like 6:40 am, 3:30 pm and 10:30pm, so it's only about 8 hours overnight. I'd maybe mess around with mealtimes, because they probably are really hungry in the morning!
 

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Your baby may already be up super early in the morning, lol.

This is not the popular opinion on parenting forums that are all about pitch dark and white noise machines, but babies can get used to sleeping through noises same as any of us. I had an apartment once by train tracks and at first the trains at night woke me, but I ended up sleeping through them. I have a 4 month old, and she no longer stirs at night if a cat gets the zoomies or starts scratching on something for food.
This, big time. It's better if baby gets used to sleeping with some noise, especially if baby will be going to day care. As an infant teacher, babies whose parents make the home super quiet while the baby sleeps have the worst nappers. They can't sleep through other babies playing and babbling. Then you have a cranky, overtired baby at the end of the day.
 

Lari

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This, big time. It's better if baby gets used to sleeping with some noise, especially if baby will be going to day care. As an infant teacher, babies whose parents make the home super quiet while the baby sleeps have the worst nappers. They can't sleep through other babies playing and babbling. Then you have a cranky, overtired baby at the end of the day.
Exactly. The first month is going to be hard no matter what you do because your little one has just gone through a traumatic experience where they've been ripped out of a place where they have a steady supply of food and are always the right temperature, and they rock whenever mom is moving to a cold place where they can get hungry and have to work for food and they need you constantly. I get why parents are so desperate to do anything to get baby asleep and staying asleep, but you might as well play the long game and keep normal house noises going.
 
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Tlifter

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That's a long time at night without food - basically 13 hours with 6 treats in between at 10pm. Our feeding schedule is like 6:40 am, 3:30 pm and 10:30pm, so it's only about 8 hours overnight. I'd maybe mess around with mealtimes, because they probably are really hungry in the morning!
10pm-7:30am is 9.5hrs. That’s not much longer than your 8hrs. I can give your’s a try though. Thanks.
 

Lari

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10pm-7:30am is 9.5hrs. That’s not much longer than your 8hrs. I can give your’s a try though. Thanks.
Right, but you said it was only the 6 greenies then, so I didn't really count it. I'm not sure how big they are, but if I tried to pass off six treats as something to tide them over for more than maybe an hour, I'm pretty sure the cats would take it as a joke. I see I didn't read your schedule well (it was 3:30am and I was nursing when I made that comment) and that you have two meals, one with dental treats, and two snacks. If it's feasible with your schedule, I'd give a bit less with the meals and have three meals. If it's wet food, it tends to keep them fuller a bit longer because there's more protein.
 
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