How do I get my cat to stop waking me up at 5:45am?

Question

I have a small, 8lb (around 3.6 kg) female cat whom, in a day, I feed a third of a cup dry food and a can of simple nourish wet food. I split this into a morning and evening meal, but the cat meows incessantly for its morning meal at 5:40am despite me trying to ignore her.

I would not like to serve her more food or let her free-feed as this amount has been keeping her weight stable and I would not like her to overeat and get fat.

What are some things I could try?

So far all I've tried is to serve her dinner late at night but this hasn't been enough as it turns out, which is concerning.

Answer 1

This happens to my mom and her cats, because she feeds them wet food in the morning. I did some reading and found that feeding them in the morning will make them want to wake you up for food in the morning.

When I got kittens, I made it a point to only feed them wet food when I came home from work and never in the morning. I found this to work very well as they let me sleep (well, kind of) without waking me up wanting to eat. They know if they are hungry, there is dry food and to feed themselves.

My cats still wake me up through the night, but this is mostly due to the fact they want to play fetch at 3 am or they were on the prowl and making noise. By playing fetch, I mean literally playing fetch. My female will usually drop her favorite toy on me or next to me and lick my arm until I grab her toy and throw it out the bedroom door which she will go and retrieve and repeat the process should I have fallen asleep before she came back, which I'm glad of.

So the only thing I have for you to try would be changing up when they get wet food, but if ignoring them doesn't work, it may be too late to try to change up their feeding time.

I am also gone 10+ hours a day, so I understand your hardships of not being able to play with them. Usually when I get home, I spend the next 3 hours playing with my cats, sometimes by choice, other times it's because they yell at me.

Answer 2

Cats are active mostly in the late evening and in the early morning but it is possible to change this

The thing to do is to make a routine of playing with your cat so it uses the energy built up during the day, and also try to keep your cat awake and active more of the day.

If your cat is an outdoor cat it also helps if it stays out for a longer time during the day before you let it back in.

Getting or making some toys for your cat can also help, it is easy to make some toys for your cat like balls with a small opening and treats or dry food inside.

If you adjust the amount of pieces of dry food in the toys I suggest it is easy to make sure your cat uses more energy in playing with them than they get from eating the dry food in them.

A cat tree placed by a window so it can see the outside and its birds and animals might also help to keep your cat active and entertained during the day.

For every second of the day your cat is active it gives you one more second to sleep atleast.

Have to go my cat got a mouse and I need to clean up the mess.