Last month, we launched our new “Ask the cat Behaviorist with Mikel Delgado” segment. once a month, we’ll post a pointer for you to post your questions for Mikel. She’ll answer as numerous of them as he can each month, and I’ll publish her answers in a subsequent post.
Mikel is a certified cat behavior specialist at Feline Minds, providing on-site consultations for cat guardians, shelters, and pet-related companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, and remote consultations around the world. She is currently completing her PhD in Psychology at UC Berkeley, where she studies animal behavior and human-pet relationships.
Sleep deprived cat guardians
I am becoming sleep deprived! My Kat wants my attention all during the night, yowling and pushing at me. could close door but she doesn’t like closed door. She refuses to play at bedtime to tire her out..I need my sleep! (Patricia LeBlanc)
Dear Mikel,
I adopted 5 yo littermates Bo & Ellie last summer (days after saying goodbye to my 19 yo Evi). Their daddy, who’d raised them together from the age of 6 weeks with a ton of love, was being shipped overseas and they were in desperate need of a home together, so in they moved.
The problem is the practice dear BoBo has of meowing ever so loudly outside my bedroom door every morning starting around 5:30am. I’ve been sleep deprived because they moved in. sadly I should keep my bedroom door shut because I’m allergic to cats. I adore cats, have always had cats, will always have cats, but I have to sleep in a “clean room” to avoid attacks of allergy-induced asthma. These kitties always slept on their daddy’s bed, so being shut out of the bedroom now should make them feel sad, lonely, forlorn, confused. I’d hoped they’d just get used to the new normal, but nothing’s changed in 9 months. I leave plenty of food out before I go to bed, and there’s typically some left in the morning, so it’s about attention, not food. I do give them a long play session at night to tire them out. Earplugs fall out by morning. I tried to just disregard it and stay in bed, knowing that if I got up when the meowing started then I was just cementing this bad practice — but he won’t stop meowing (I waited 90 minutes once!), and eventually I do have to get up for the day — so of course he’s learned that if he continues meowing, mama will get up. apparently they’re 1/2 Siamese (and 1/2 Maine Coon), so that might discuss some of the vocal volume. Help! I’m sooooo sleepy. thank you! (Karin Moore)
Mikel:
Patricia and Karin,
Your complaints are similar enough that I’m going to address them together. Cats waking up their humans in the middle of the night is one of the most common reasons I’m called for help. sleep deprivation takes its toll, on our well-being, and on our relationship with our cats!
This behavior is typically being maintained for a few reasons, the essential ones being that the cat gets something out of it and that they aren’t sleepy when we are – and so they need a “schedule shift.” in some cases the situation is complicated by the fact that there has been a change (such as with Karin’s kitties, where they were used to sleeping on the bed) or a housing situation or cat that doesn’t allow for the cats to be separated from humans at night.
So, to sleep through the night: the first step is to keep the cat much more active throughout the day, and for some cats this implies much more than just a play session at bedtime. Food puzzles, bird feeders attached to a window, and vertical space can encourage much more activity during the day. At least one or two daily play sessions with interactive toys will help.
Patricia, I wasn’t sure if Kat is only challenging to play with at night – so there may be a special toy that you reserve for a night time play session, OR you may want to shift your feeding schedule so she plays FIRST, then gets a meal. A lot of humans feed their cats first thing when they get home from work, and it can be challenging to get cats to play when they’ve recently had a meal – just like we don’t like to exercise with a full tummy!
Food can also get cats much more on your schedule. I recommend meal feeding (or some variation thereof) so that your cat has exercise and the largest meal of the day shortly before your bedtime. That will make them much more likely to work out down for the night. If you don’t want to meal feed, then possibly pick and choose when your cat has food freely available, picking up their bowls in the early evening so they are hungry at bedtime.
Now is when things get a little gnarly. To really stop this behavior, you have to disregard it consistently. If you give in after 5, 10, or even worse, 90 minutes, then you have just rewarded persistence. now it is true, Karin, that at some point, you have to get out of bed. Why not use clicker training and reward your cat for going to a perch when you leave the bedroom – only click when he has settled anullnull
