How To Get A Good Night's Sleep and Still Love Your Pets?!

[eli1126]

Help! I am student teaching this semester and sleep deprived! My cats lately have decided that anytime after I go to sleep is a great time for them to climb all over me purring like chainsaws or chasing each other round and round the bed or even just insisting that I pet them!! I have tried shutting them out, but the past two nights they have sat outside my door and yowled!! Does anyone else deal with this? Suggestions and Ideas?! Help!!

Beth

[keska]

I have not found a 100% effective way to keep my cat from yowling when I lock her out. What I have found is that she will stop yowling after a bit - usually 30 minutes or so of on and off crying and jumping on the doorknob. I usually just go to bed early and read while I wait for her to calm down.

I saw a thread once where someone mentioned turning on your vacuum cleaner and leaving it outside the door with the cord running under, so that when the cat yowls, you plug in the vacuum and the noise scares the cat and trains it not to talk outside the door. I've never actually tried this method, though, because I live in an apartment and I worry about bothering the neighbors at night.

Good luck! If you find anything that works, please let me know.

[tlew12778]

That's a funny suggestion about the vacuum cleaner! Granted, I would not really want to keep getting up at night to plug the thing in.

My best suggestion is to play with them for an hour before bed. Make them run around like maniacs until they are so tired they fall over and go to sleep. That's what we do when they are feeling rambunctious at night. How old are your kitties? Mine stopped staying up at night after they were a year or 2 old.

[Katie&Micah]

Mine is 9 years old and she still does this unfortunately. Some nights I'm just not destined to get a good nights sleep. The only thing that seems to help me is to really tire her out before we head to bed so she gets it out of her system.

[roberta]

My sister and her boyfriend did the vacuum cleaner trick that keska mentioned to their two cats and it worked! Try it on a weekend night or a night you don't have to go to work/school so you can stay up to keep plugging in the vacuum. Good luck!

[eli1126]

Thanks! The kitties are 6 months old. I blame myself a little for their behavior because we brought them home in May right after school was out for the summer. I was with them everyday until school started and now I am gone all day and night :( So maybe they are lonely? I'll try playing with them tonight before bed and the vaccuum thing this weekend, I am willing to try anything to get some rest!!

Beth

[Heidi9771]

Help! I am student teaching this semester and sleep deprived! My cats lately have decided that anytime after I go to sleep is a great time for them to climb all over me purring like chainsaws or chasing each other round and round the bed or even just insisting that I pet them!! I have tried shutting them out, but the past two nights they have sat outside my door and yowled!! Does anyone else deal with this? Suggestions and Ideas?! Help!!

Beth

We deal with this every night, to the point where we lose hours of sleep. Our three cats are out of control, and scream their heads off if we shut them out.

Charlie loves to do a full tilt run and do a jump and flail on the bed, attack our legs, and jump off the bed.

Lola meows and meows because she wants to be let out again ( we keep her in at night for her safety, but let her out in the day when we are in the yard with her to keep an eye on her .)

Tig chases Charlie and Lola, knocking down things and making a huge rukous.

Where is the peace? I don't know. I just wanted you to know you are not alone!

[{b}]

We have three cats. They are all adults, which helps - they don't want to play every 20 minutes like kittens.

We HAVE to keep to the routine, though, or they go nuts. And the female, who's the most kitten-like even at 6 years old, will howl and bring me toys all night long if she hasn't played enough during the day. So playing with them before bed is a definite plus, especially if they are not adults. It'll help them sleep longer if they are all tuckered out.

DH follows his own nighttime/sleep routine, and I follow mine. I work nights, so he's asleep before I get home. I HAVE to go right to bed, lights out, when I get home. No checking email, watching a movie, having something to eat or whatever. They go nuts and start killing each other.

So, I suggest playing with your pets regularly before bedtime, and then sticking to a routine they recognize. They will learn what lights out means.

[Brandy]

My two cats (1.5 yr old, each) have decided at 6:15am every morning it is time to go jump in my mini blinds after the lizards that like to climb on the window... It is driving me insane! They will jump into the blind and try to climb their way through to the edge of the window. First off- I NEVER wake up before 7:30am. It is not like they've gotten into a habit of me being up at that time. My blinds are ruined (they are cheap $5) and I debating buying a shade but don't want to buy stuff they will ruin. I've squirted them with water, put them in another room, knock them off the bed when they try to jump but they keep running back obsessed with the stupid lizard! I live with someone else so I have to be considerate of noise but he wakes up around 4, so the cats wake up and play with him, then come back to sleep with me. Ugh! I am ready for a good night's sleep!