If your cat is disrupting your sleep at night, know there is hope that you can find relief.
A study at the University of Messina Faculty of Veterinary Medicine found that cats may adjust their eating and sleeping schedules to match up with the schedules of their caretaker.
This finding is in agreement with my own experience, where our cats did learn that night time was human sleep time.
Your cat is capable of maintaining a low level of activity at night, even sleeping for much of that time. As you encourage your cat to do that, here are 5 tips to help you succeed:
1. If your kitty is up and around an hour or two before your bed time, enjoy some play time with your cat. This may help work off some pent-up energy and create a need for your cat to rest, and perhaps sleep.
2. Serve your cat a late night snack about thirty minutes before bed time. We all tend to relax a little after a meal, and this might also curtail any hunger for cat food until morning.
3. If you prefer your cat not sleep on your bed, provide a cat bed nearby so your cat can be close to you. (Take care to locate the bed where you will not stumble upon it in the dark.)
For information on easy to clean cat beds, visit my blog post How to Choose a Cat Bed
4. I personally know some cats that found this free music to be very relaxing. You can play it on YouTube to see if it helps your cats to sleep. Just copy and paste the video title you see below into YouTube search. The video plays the music, so no additional steps are necessary. Here is the title:
528 Hz Healing Music for Stressed Cats – Cat Purring Sounds & Healing Frequency
5. An article published by The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine informs us that providing activity for your cat during the day may result in your cat sleeping more at night. So whether or not you are home during the day, provide some amusement for your cat. Some suggestions:
- Have a scratching post available to provide an outlet for that instinctive behavior. Since they sometimes do this on impulse while strolling through the house, multiple scratching posts located here and there might be a good thing.
- Cats love to play in order to satisfy their instinctive need to hunt. Having cat toys scattered around might give them an outlet for that tiger that resides within them.
- Cats enjoy looking out of windows to monitor the activities of birds and squirrels. Having an accessible window for them to gaze out of may keep their minds off sleeping for a while.
- Cats love to climb and be up high, so have a cat tree or two.
For information on cat trees and scratching posts, visit my blog post How to Choose a Cat Tree
During the night your cat will probably not be asleep the entire time, being inclined to take a series of catnaps rather than one eight hour long sleep. Your cat may periodically wake up, move around, might even leave the room. Hopefully this will happen without your sleep being disturbed. I’ve lived this scenario, I know you can make it can happen.
This happy and cooperative arrangement is possible because cats are not necessarily driven to hunt and roam only at night. They are not nocturnal, they are crepuscular, meaning they are active at dusk and dawn. While they can see much better than humans in low light, they cannot see in total darkness.
Visit my blog post How You Can Read Your Cat’s Eyes if you are curious about their eyesight.
Side Note: It may be a good idea to have plug-in night lights in your home so your cat can find the litter box at night, since they would have trouble doing that in total darkness.
With some patience, you should be able to get your cat to adjust to your lifestyle. They are creatures of habit, so do your best to create a routine that will make you both happy.
Why Does My Cat Wake Me In the Morning?
If your cat lets you sleep through the night, then wakes you at dawn, you are probably getting a request for breakfast. Your cat is inviting you to be a party to the age-old heritage of cats hunting for food at dawn.
Dawn and dusk are hunting times for cats in the wild, and your house-dwelling cat retains many of those ancestral instincts. The ritual of rising at dawn to hunt is a natural behavior pattern.
At the top of this blog post I wrote that cats tend to alter their habits to match the routine of their humans. Should your cat wake you in the middle of the night, you may want to decline that request, having made sure your pet is not trying to inform you of an emergency. You want to try to convince your cat that this behavior is not going to work for you.
If your cat wakes you at sunrise, it will be up to you as to when you are able and willing to respond. Hopefully over time your cat will understand that just because they are awake at dawn, that does not necessarily mean you want to be.
I have experienced being awakened at dawn by many cats. Sometimes I would just get up and get cat breakfast. Their reaction would make it obvious that breakfast was what they wished for. If there was ample time left, I might return to bed. If not, I just started my own breakfast. Coffee anyone?
How you deal with your cat’s early morning ritual will depend a lot on how you like to begin your own morning routine. Aim for something that will work for both of you, then give it time. It can work out alright.
How Long Should My Cat Sleep Each Day?
An article by BBC Science Focus Magazine informs us that cats sleep anywhere from 10 to 17 hours total each day, broken up into several catnaps of 50 to 110 minutes duration.
Kittens and older cats typically sleep more than healthy adult cats.
Your cat may not live in the jungle, but your cat is still a carnivore, and this pattern of sleeping is in keeping with that carnivore nature.
Because there is so much more to know about cats, visit my blog post Living With Your Cat
Does My Cat Dream While Sleeping?
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a study that led them to propose that animals probably dream.
Additionally, sleeping cats have been observed moving their paws and twitching in a way that indicated they might be dreaming. I have observed this myself. Perhaps you have also.
If you have lived with a cat for any length of time, you know they are incredibly creative thinkers. How could a mind like that not dream?
Let us do our best to make their lives sweet, so shall be their dreams.