Does Your Cat Play While You (Try to) Sleep?

  

 Are you one of the lucky folks whose cats tuck into bed every night at the same time you do and then sleeps until you wake up?  Or do your cats view the nighttime hours as super playtime, time to ask you for extra attention and love, time to sing their favorite songs, or run marathons through your house?

If you fall into the second group, there's hope!  First of all, we humans need to understand that cats are natural night hunters who sleep all day to get ready for the night's action.  According to thesprucepets.com, there are several other reasons why your cat might be up at night:
 -- Not enough exercise during the day
 -- Boredom - especially for cats who are alone most of the time
 -- Being hungry or thirsty
 -- Your schedule and your cat's have gotten out of sync
 -- Kitty's bedding or litter box are disturbed

They also point out that, for senior cats, suddenly waking up at night could be a symptom of pain from arthritis or other another more serious condition or ailment.  If you suspect this in your senior cat, get him checked out by your vet right away.  

If you know your cat's health is fine but they think your sleep time is play time, there are steps you can take to deal with it.  Some are easy and others require a little bit of retraining.  Step one is to decide how you want to react when your cat starts his nighttime routine.  Reacting right at the moment when they wake you up may not be the best time to deal with it since you may be startled or angry.  Your reaction will go a long way toward modifying the situation if you can be calm and positive. 

One school of thought suggests just ignoring your cat's attempts to wake you up.  The idea is that if he doesn't get a reaction he may learn it's not worth the effort and will leave you alone. If ignoring your cat just hasn't worked, thesprucepets.com suggests several things to try.  The best idea is to schedule an hour-long serious play session with your cat about an hour before you go to bed.  Get your cat to expend some energy and then follow that up with a treat or small snack.  We all know cats love a predictable schedule so if you set up a regular pre-bed play time for your cat, it will become incorporated into that routine. 

There are other options for cats who will not be ignored at night and for those who love to pounce on an unsuspecting sleeper's feet.  Some of the ideas are for the sleepers themselves and not the cat - like white noise players that play ocean sounds or waterfalls.  They can help you sleep and not hear your persistent cat!  To keep the pounces to a minimum, try completely darkening your room, including covering up or removing illuminated clocks and smartphones.

There are also lots of fun toys out there to help with night-rowdy cats.  Outwardhound.com has lots of great ideas for quiet toys that will help use up some of your cat's pent-up energy but not wake you up at the same time.  Flashing firefly mats, quiet twinkle balls and the very creative purr pillow are just a few great ideas that could help this situation.

Fighting a cat's natural, evolutionary tendency to hunt - or in our modern pet cat's world, play - at night is a challenge, but with some attention to creating a steady schedule that includes pre-bedtime play as well as some innovative toys, everyone will have a better night!

CLICK HERE to see the full thesprucepets.com article.

CLICK HERE to see a complete list of Outwardhound.com night toys.