Thread: Being woken in the morning

Cats are crepuscular animals, which means they are most active at dawn and dusk. So he wants to hunt/play during hours that can be inconvenient for humans.
Does he have a friend (feline or canine)? If not, you might want to get him one.

Originally Posted by Antonia

Does he have a friend (feline or canine)? If not, you might want to get him one.

Oh yeah! That works!!

What happens then is that when one Coonie wakes you up at 4.45am, you open your eyes to see two others sitting nearby and watching him!

Hi there. A similar thread was started last year, the replies may be of some help?;

http://www.maine-coon-forum.info/mai...ocal-coon.html

See what I mean? Best time of the day!!

I think he is just doing it for attention. My kitten used to get up between 3AM and 4AM every morning because he wanted to play. Getting me up involved crying and biting my hands and feet.

The best advice I can give you is to ignore him. He wants to get you up and his behavior is rewarded each time you get up. It took me about two weeks to sleep train my kitten and all I did was when he woke up and cried and bit me. I just pretended that I was asleep and ignored him. Admittedly ignoring the biting was very hard. When he realised that I was not going to get up and play and that I just slept through it all, he stopped trying to get me up.

Now when he wakes up at 3AM, he jumps off the bed and walks around the house and plays by himself (no crying or biting) and after half an hour comes back and goes to sleep. Then he wakes up when I do to get ready in the morning.

I have tried to ignore him Deshni but he does not stop,sometimes going for over two hours.
Also once I am awake it is pretty impossible to shut out the racket he makes.

cslogg

MC Bubba (RIP) would lick my eyelids in the middle of the night if I was slack enough
to let the food bowl go empty in the middle of the night and callous enough to attempt
to sleep through his impending starvation.

Try to ignore that...

Oh dear, that is a tricky problem, especially as it's been going on for so long. We went through a phase of sleep interruption with Herbie when he was very young (he's a year old now). He would wake up at 6am or so and start making a racket: banging and scraping on the bedroom window, crying and howling, and pouncing on our toes. All of us (me, OH, other 3 cats) ignored him until he got bored and went off to sleep again. I never went back to sleep though, so I suffered a gruelling few weeks of sleep deprivation, bit like having a baby I suppose. After about 6 weeks he got the idea that NOTHING HAPPENS at 6am, and he stopped doing it. Now I have to wake him up at 7.30!

There are a couple of things you could do to help change the routine, but also keep in mind that is a routine and routines take time to change (Usually at least 10 days).

You could institute playtime and tire your kitty out before your bed time - that way he may be more inclined to sleep longer after the play period... With Main Coons play time needs to exercise their hunting instinct as well as their bodies and because they are quite large play has to have enough space and time 5 mins won't cut it, you need to set aside about 15-20min of proper high energy play time.

Also change his feeding time to as late as possible - preferably just after the new play time, that way he should settle down for a good sleep after exercise and food. If he is used to getting a meal in the early evening then change this meal to a light snack and feed him his proper meal later.

Is your cat neutered? If not, you should seriously consider it, because then this could all be due to his raging hormones.

One rule of thumb we use with our cats is that if there is a behavior we don't like, we substitute with another positive alternative - but that would mean you needing to find out exactly what it is your cat is wanting when he makes all the noise early in the morning - is he wanting play? Is he unhappy with his kitty litter? Is he thirsty? Etc... My guess is that he just needs more focused attention from you, and if you designate the time for this then the night calling should stop.

Good Luck