Help my cat is a 5am Alarm clock.....

bethie

i feel so lucky reading these cat threads. I must have the two most easy-going, best behaved cats in the world!

the male only wakes me up for snuggle time - and then he kneads me for about 10 minutes and wanders off!

girl has never tried to wake me - i am sure this is due to the fact that every time she wanders into the bedroom she has the dog trying to sit on her and give her a kiss!

dog only tends to wake me up when she needs a pee - the other day i got a lovely lay-in till 11am from all three!

KiKi

Mine don't wake me up til 0900 when I'm inevitably late for something. I WISH they'd wake me up earlier!

OP, cats do like to graze, but perhaps feed him a few biscuits before you go to bed. Not all cats will eat and eat - mine certainly don't. My little one is very little, and despite food being there she doesn't eat it unless she wants it.

If you feed his evening meal at 1800, then it's nearly 12 hours since he's eaten, and that's a pretty long time for a cat. Also, if he's a big cat, he WILL need more. An average cat is 4kg, but it really, really depends on their size, and you can't generalise. My eldest cat is 6kg - but she's not fat at ALL. She's just very big, all over. And I have to feed her more because she would get too hungry, poor thing.

Don't give in and get up at 0530 (bad habits!), but perhaps try a few biscuits before bed, and feeding him more in the evening. If you're worried about him putting on weight, you can always feed diet ones as the late night ones (I do with my two - they actually prefer the taste!) - but if he's a big cat he will eat more and I think that's fair enough. Your vet who will give you good advice, too.

Enjoy your new addition!
KiKi

LittleMissAspie

Same here bethie. My cat sleeps on the bedroom or landing floor overnight then comes in at some point and gently snuggles up on top of us for a snooze. Most days I wake up with the alarm clock wondering why the duvet feels heavy, then realise my cat is snoozing on top of me.

She doesn't have mealtimes, just has plenty of food in her bowl all the time which she grazes at.

Drea

Mine is a 7am alarm and getting earlier as the suns coming out earlier!

zzzLazyDaisy

dizziblonde wrote: »

If you give in you'll end up with a highly trained feline alarm clock. Mine prefers the bopping me on the nose gently to wake me, followed by ramming a furry paw up my nose if she doesn't get any result from that.

Mine ever so gently licks my nose.

If that doesn't work, he wraps his claws in my hair and pulls. That usually works

Drea

I wish mine would do something to me. Instead I have her dragging anything and everything onto the floor from shelves, drawers, tables, etc :rotfl:

I don't have much choice but to give in sometimes or the house will be wrecked!

soupdragon10

My cats have ad lib access to dry food, a large bowl in the utility room, I rarely feed them wet food as it always seems to upset them. As we live in a rural area they are in and out when they want which is why I don't feed at a specific time. 4 of the 6 are good hunters, so I'm sure supplement their diet with mice etc as well.

I would mention that none of them are overweight, which is what I worried about initially, they just seem to regulate what they eat, plus have plenty of outdoor exercise.

Two regularly sleep on the bed, but never wake me up, in fact trying to rouse them to put them out when I get up in the morning is the problem. I think their alarm system is wrongly wired!

charlie-chan

My cat used to wake my OH and I up at 5 am because when I was on placement, I used to feed her at about half 5.

I just learned to ignore her and I fed her a bit later in the evening before to compensate for the extra one or two hours she has to wait

SnowyOwl_2

Just a thought - perhaps you could try one of those automatic feeder things and set it to pop open at around 5.00am with a small handful of biscuits in it. It might lead him to associate getting his nocturnal hunger pangs satisfied with the feeder rather than with you and hopefully he'll sit and wait for that to open rather than jump on your head.

There are some listed in the Argos site - see here - though you might get a less fancy one cheaper in a pet shop.

patchwork_cat

From the pictures I don't think your cat has got Maine Coon in him. He does look big though. Just free feed him biscuits then if he is hungry he will just help himself. Some cats will over eat, but most will self regulate. Most of mine do, all except one! My monster blue who is a large neuter male Maine Coon who weighs 20 lbs - whilst he is a bit plump and cuddly, he is a very large boy!