No one told me cats are nocturnal.

[Maddy McCall]

Little B, our new kitten, sleeps during the day, and then attacks me, as I try to catch some zzzzzzzzs, in the middle of the night. Now that I am up to begin my day, she is curled up on the couch, asleep again.

Anyone else have a nocturnal cat?

[Inland]

1. BWAHA-HA-HA-HA!

Did you think cats go to bed promptly after Letterman's monologue? Of course they howl all night and sleep all day. Go shake your cat awake right now in revenge. It is the only thing to do.

[Maddy McCall]

9. Well, she's up again, eating my son's toes as he tries to have...

breakfast. :-)

[Boomer]

2. ALL cats are nocturnal

Didn't you read the Basic Cat Manual before acquiring your kitten? Or were you so enraptured by the oh so fuzzy cuuuuttteee little kitten that you neglected to read the fine print about hairballs and rampant self-interest.

The good news is that they do grow out of expecting you to play with them in the middle of the night. And once you learn to simply ignore the faint sound of something shattering in another room, or the hacking sound of a hairball being deposited somewhere in the house, you'll get a good night's sleep.

[Maddy McCall]

10. My thread was tongue in cheek.

Of course I understand that she will keep me up sometimes, and that her schedule and mine won't match.

I adopted her from a cat that was pregnant when my brother rescued her. It was not an impulse decision. My aquisition of the "Day after Tomorrow" DVD--now THAT was impulsive. :-)

[Boomer]

17. Oy, I did that too

I took in a pregnant cat because I just couldn't bear to watch her fight for survival in our neighborhood. She was sooo frantically trying to find a place to have her kittens, even crawling into people's cars at night.

She ended up delivering a litter of six kittens, who destroyed the hardwood floor in one of my bedrooms, but they were absolutely adorable so I've forgiven them. I found good homes for them all and just wish I could have kept at least one, but the inn was full.

[R Hickey]

3. Both my cats let me sleep in today. They woke me up at 6:00 am

That's cause I got up and fed them a can of shredded beef at three.

[Boomer]

5. Who needs alarm clocks?

Our cats usually don't bother with this chore because they know the neurotic Lab will wake us up at 5:45am every morning, including weekends. He positively has a nervous breakdown if we don't stick to The Schedule.

On the very rare occassions when he sleeps late (having contractors in the house is very exhausting), the cats indignantly assume their role in the Backup Alarm System and start wailing their displeasure that food isn't on the table NOW!

[Maddy McCall]

11. Hahaha! I know the feeling...

I have a schnauzer who has developed a taste for kitten food...so I have to get up and go with the kitten to the kitchen to keep the schnauzer out of her food while she eats.

Ah, the joys... :-)

[Dookus]

4. don't get me fucking started...

my oldest, Punk, who usually doesn't cause a problem, has awakened me the last three nights. It is now 4:29am and I'm wide awake. The little shit is sleeping now. Grrr...

[Boomer]

8. That's just what I said last night

"You little shit!"

This was after a half-hour of increasingly frantic attempts to bring in one of our cats before we went to sleep. I tried calling, then rattling the food container and crinkling the food treats bag. Then I gave up and went to bed, only to hear the faint tinkling of his collar bell. Was he on the roof?

So I go back downstairs again and try the whole calling routine again, and nothing, he doesn't appear. I hate leaving him out at night* because he's very territorial and there's too much chance he'll get in a fight.

But I give up and go back to bed again, and just as I'm falling asleep I hear the bell again, very close by.

Turns out he's been asleep in the bedroom closet for hours, ignoring me.

-------------------------------------

*I'm a firm believer in keeping cats indoors, but Alex was a neighborhood cat who chose to live with us. Since he'd already spent the last five or six years living outside, he was not about to transform into a house-bound cat. Fortunately, as he's aged, he spends less and less time outside and will agree to stay in all night... most of the time.

[Maddy McCall]

12. Well, if I had known.,..

I would have sent you a PM to comiserate with you. :-)

[Insider]

6. and then there were two...

after one night of cali, i had to go get hobo. they entertained each other day and night. but like another poster mentioned, it took a little getting used to when they RAN the house from midnight to 6am.

[Maddy McCall]

13. Yes, my usual cuddle mate, Lucinda...

my schnauzer, now stays up all night playing chase with the kitten. Craziness at my house, I tell ya, craziness. :-)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

7. My cats are quite fond of trying to curl up on my face or prod my eyes

You have my deepest sympathies

[Maddy McCall]

15. This kitten likes to lick my nostrils...

I don't understand it, I really don't. I guess she thinks she is grooming me. :)

[charlie]

14. Get used to it

I've got a Russian Blue who won't be denied her middle of night snacks. She sits outside my door doing a low-key but incessant m-r-r-r-oooooow. That sets off the Tabby, who's as insistently affectionate as a puppy, into paroxysms because ohboyohboyohboy HE'S COMING OUT. She bounds between plastering herself onto the transom over the door and slamming against the doorknob, BLAMBLAMBLAM!

So, 2:30 every morning I'm walking around the house carrying the Tabby, with the sound of crunchy snarfing in one ear, and a cat motorboating and licking the other.

Like my cats, I get by on short naps.

[Maddy McCall]

16. That's hilarious!

I love your vivid description. Funny story! :D

[ET Awful]

18. My two are actually pretty well behaved now.

Althea does wake me up pretty early some mornings, but she's not rude about it, she just curls up next to me on the pillow and purrs as loud as she can until I wake up (if that doesn't work, she just rubs up against any hand that's outside the covers.

Quinn usually only comes in after he sees me already moving, then he jumps up beside me and purrs (or bats Althea out of the way).

They are up late making all kinds of noise sometimes, but the worst damage they've ever done is knocking over a plant which was (fortunately) in a plastic pot anyway, so just scoop up the potting soil and go on about the day.

My two get along well now.

I should put in more time playing with them though :).

[Maddy McCall]

21. I could take the purring...

but the pouncing from the headboard onto my face, claws unsheathed, is becoming a problem. :-)

Pretty cats you have. :-)

[underpants]

19. Hey jchild, cats are nocturnal

The "golden hour" is from about 3 AM to 4 AM. They LOVE that time.

[Maddy McCall]

20. Oh how well my chewed fingers know. :-)

[underpants]

22. If they are cleaning you that means the love you

AND you might want to look into bathing more regularly. ;-)

Seriously my wife found that out this weekend on a cat website. Our boy used to wrap her hair in his paws (hurt quite a lot).

[Maddy McCall]

24. Cleaning I can take. Biting, chewing, clawing....

That's a different matter. :-)

I know this kitten loves me. When I am forced to take a diurnal nap, she curls up on my shoulder and sleeps with me. She's a sweetie--in a demonic kind of way. :-)

[TrogL]

23. They eat birds

Just thought you'd like to know.

[Maddy McCall]

25. And mice, too. Right?

When she gets to bird and mice killing age, I'll limit the amount of grooming I let her do to me. :-)

[texas1928]

26. All four of ours have mastered the art of landing on my groin.

I will be very asleep and then blind light and body doubled up, and I am awake and groaning. They seem to like to make sure I get at least one groin shot a night. They started it as kittens but now that all are full and very healthy cats it is very painful. The worst thing is that when it happens all my wife can do is lay there and laugh.

[kick-ass-bob]

27. kick

[politicat]

28. They're not.. they're Crepuscular

Cats are not strictly nocturnal, but crepescular, meaning they become active at twilight and just before dawn.

It may SEEM that your kitty is up all night, but she's probably sleeping in the middle times.

And yes, They seem to sleep ALL the time. 18 out of 24 hours is not uncommon for ours. Mr. Pcat says that kittens tend to be a little more middle of the night ambitious than older cats and that training now is a necessity. (I've never had a kitten... I've always adopted older cats.)

He says to close her out of the bedroom at night and to get a heating pad for her at night and to be firm about not giving in when she wants to play in the middle of the night.

(For the record, we have incredibly well behaved, well socialized cats because Mr. Pcat took the time to train them out of these type of habits when they were kittens.)

Me? I'm the softie. I'm more than willing to play at 2 AM, but I know better than to encourage our beasties. (Our cats were his cats before our marriage; my pre-marital cat-child died in April and she was adopted at 2 years old.)

Pcat