Nov
8
Does Your Cat Keep You Up At Night?
Posted by Carol Johnston at 15:27 | Filed In Cat Behavior
Cats are naturally nightime creatures. In the wild they do most of their hunting at night and sleep during the day. But your cat is in indoor cat and doesn’t need to hunt for his food. Still he keeps you up at night due to his nocturnal instincts. The good news is you help him meet his needs and you can still get good nights rest.
Here’s what you can do. Play vigorously with him for 30 minutes before you go to bed. When you play with him use toys he can, stalk, chase and capture. After playing, give him food high in protein. This will satisfy his hunting needs. Afterward take the time to groom him to further relax him. He will then be sleepy.
Also you can provide your cat with many different toys, scratching posts, cat trees and cat activity centers to help him use up excess energy during the day, which in turn will make him less active at night.
Just don’t play with him at night before bed but schedule a time to play during the day as well. Cats enjoy human companionship and it’s a great way for you to bond with your kitty. Which means he won’t be waking you up for attention.
If your cat wakes you up at night, don’t get up to play and feed him this will only encourage him to wake you up at night, thus becoming a habit. Better yet, keep your cat in another room with food, water, toys, litter box, scratching post and a comfortable bed to keep him from disturbing you at night.
Don’t use physical punishment on a cat when trying to solve any problem behavior. It will only make the cat afraid of you and it won’t solve anything. Instead get the cat to associate the bad behavior with negative consquences.
Another thing, if your cat has been quiet during the night but has started disturibing your sleep then taking him to the vet might uncover a medical problem you weren’t aware of.
Now that you know what you need to do to calm your cat down, hopefully you can sleep peacefully. Sweet dreams!