My cat wakes me up at 5 :30 a.m. even on the weekends!

My kitty won't let me sleep late. I don't even need to set my alarm during the week to go to work because his internal clock tells him to go and wake me up. He won't stop until I start to rub his belly and if I get the attention he wants I wake up and will not be able to go back to sleep. If I close the door to the bedroom he wakes everybody up asking to enter the room. :-)

Anybody here with the same kitty issue? :-)

"Cats are notorious for waking their owners up at oh-dark-thirty. If you wish to stop this, there are several steps to take.

The cat may simply be hungry and demanding its food. By feeding it when it wakes you up at an ungodly hour, you are simply reinforcing its behavior. If this is why it's waking you up, you can handle this either by filling the bowl just before you go to sleep so it will not be empty in the morning, or by ignoring the cat's wakeups and feeding it at the exact same time convenient to you every morning. The cat will adjust fairly quickly to the second.

If it is trying to play, there are again several tactics you can try. If you make a practice of tiring it out with play just before bedtime, you can reduce its calls for play at dawn. What works in some cases is to hiss gently at the cat. You can also try shutting it out of the bedroom. If it pounds on the door, put it in a bathroom until you wake up.

In persistent cases, try the vacuum cleaner, eater of noisy kitties. Go to bed, leaving him out in the hall. Position the vacuum cleaner next to the door, inside it. Plug the vacuum in, and arrange things so you can switch the vacuum on from your bed (eg, wire a switch into an extension cord). Wait for the scratching and wailing at the door. Turn the vacuum cleaner on. If cat comes back, turn it on again. The cat will eventually decide to stop bothering you in the morning".

I wouldn't use it, of course, because my cat gets what she wants, when she wants it. Only a part of it is because she's "like that". A big part of it is because I'm "like that". She had me pegged right away.

1. Ignore cats for as long as possible.
2. When ignoring cats becomes impossible, get up, shuffle into kitchen and feed cats.
3. Go back to bed and try to sleep until cats come back for more attention.

By the way, my method doesn't work.

and they are similar. :-)

He just turned 5 in April, and for the longest time he wouldn't give me time of day (no pun intended). For the past few months, he's been waking me up right around when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, sometimes a tad bit, er, earlier (like 45 minutes), and of course none of the cats have ANY concept of the whole 5-on-2-off thing. If I roll over and try to sleep some more on weekends, Plato will either sit on the night table and play with my glass or soda can (so I have to pick up after myself, aargh), or lie down on my leg and snooze until I get up.

6 other cats spectate, usually quietly, while all this is going on. :rofl:

It does help to fill their bowls just before going to bed, though.

I give them the wet food at night and they have plenty of dry food in the bowl in the mornings. I think my cat has a need to be rubbed 24 hours/day. :-)

and i don't have one now.

of course i was co-owned by my neighbor's cat -- she was more demanding than the dogs.

but as much a pain in the ass the four footers have been -- i'm basically of the opinion that it's a little thing to give them what they want and to try to make their lives just as wonderful as i can possibly make it.

now i will complain to them long and sometimes loudly while i do it -- they don't seem to take offense -- but inside i have that satisfaction that i'm giving something to the most loving creatures there ever were.

and as demanding. Needs attention all the time. I guess he won't let me sleep because it is routine.

Early morning is an exciting time for your cat. The birds are chirping outside and he does not want you to miss it.

Our cats are the same way. We wake up M-F at about 6am, and I have been trained to feed the cats before I do anything else in the morning. So before I make coffee, or even pee, I crack open a can of cat food.

This morning, I tried to sleep in until 9am, because I was up until 3am. Sleeping past 8:30am is completely unacceptable in my oldest cat's eyes. This is how the weekend ritual starts.

Around 5am, the youngest walks up the length of me or my husband, and bites our noses. This means wake up. We ignore him and he settles at our feet, where he snuggles up to our feet and nibbles on our toes if we dare move. Don't worry, it's a gentle love tap of a bite.

Around 8am, we hear the distinct sound of a ten pound cat leaping from the dresser to the night stand, where she settles into a comfortable position to stare at us. This last for ten minutes, then the loud purring and she rubs her head on any exposed hand or face.

It's important to remember at this point DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH THE CAT. We are completely screwed if eye contact is made, because that's when the incessant meowing starts.

So, good luck with your kitty, they only figure out more ways to wake you up as they get older.

and we live here to serve them. I know what you are talking about when you tell me not to make eye contact. Even when they see your eyes opening for a second they expect you to get up and give them attention. :-)

weekday or not. I need to put up a sign. They get this terribly perplexed look when I politely tell them, I'm not interested, as if I owed them my time or something.

...but it was kitties wanting to be fed, and learning to start bugging me earlier and earlier. I switched to evening feeding, and the problem disappeared.

Your little problem, though, sounds like pure cat cussedness. Good luck with that. :-)

And this one just likes to be rubbed at around that time. He always follows me around and I can't sit anywhere without him jumping on my lap. :-)

my two cats and dog are up at 5:00 A.M. like clockwork, tag-team waking me to open the door to the yard and feeding them.

And then they sleep all day while I'm cranky for lack of sleep.

to let you sleep til 5:30. Must be (Yawwwwwn) nice.

"breakfast" - then they all go back to bed. If you don't want to get up -how about one of those "self feeders" that they could hit with their paw - that way the food wouldn't be sitting there all night getting stale in the bowl.