Who Says Pets Aren’t Like Kids? February 21, 2006
I love my kitties so very much, but I’m exhausted. Just bone tired.
Muffy was put on a prescription food for her kidneys back in December and since then the only times I have slept through the night were when I stayed over in Houston during this last cycle.
You see, Muffy is used to eating whenever the mood hits her. She’s had 24/7 access to food for all of her 14 years up until this kidney issue came up. She’s really not into waiting until one of us gets up in the morning to eat.
When she wants food, she lets me know. Only me, not Dan. She does this by standing on my head, digging through my hair with her paws, meowing, and generally just bugging the crap out of me. She won’t stop until I’ve gotten up and fed her.
And it’s not like this is a one time a night deal. I have to get up at least twice every night to feed my hungry munchkin, and it’s killing me.
Obviously some nights are worse than others like Saturday night when I had to get up three times to feed the hungry monster and then a fourth time to clean up Salvador’s hairball induced puke. Good thing my kitties are so cute and sweet. I just can’t stay upset with those furballs. Plus, I know it’s not their fault.
Now you would think I could just put Muffy down at the end of the bed or throw her out of the bed altogether and she’d stop. No way. She’s a determined and stubborn little thing. (She must get that from me.) Of course it would seem logical just to lock her out of the bedroom until she learned she can’t eat while we sleep, but we can’t do that. Salvador, our other precious kitty, cannot handle closed doors. He would literally scratch at the door and carpet all night if we closed the door.
I have no clue what to do. I feed her plenty throughout the day and always make sure she eats right before bedtime, but that only gets me to about 3am. My husband says I just need to let her learn that she can’t have food overnight. Well honey, you’re not the one she’s going crazy on when she’s hungry. If I don’t get up to feed her, I don’t sleep at all. Plus, she’s a cat. You don’t train cats. They train you. And yes, it’s apparent to me that’s what we’ve got going on here.
I’m really stuck as to what to do. She can’t eat Salvador’s food and he can’t eat hers so we can’t leave either of them out on the floor overnight. We leave Salvador’s food up on the counter where Muffy can’t get it, so he can eat whenever he chooses (not fair, I know.) I just don’t know what to do about Muffy. I know she needs her special food, but I also know that if I don’t get a decent night’s sleep one of these days I’m going to fall over.
What to do, what to do? Hell, if I know. I guess I should start taking naps.
- Posted in : my furry children
- Author : amanda
Comments»
I so understand you! Tiger does what we have started to lovingly call “the bomb”, where he jumps from the floor with streched legs onto either me or the Better Half. He doesn’t bounce as cats usually do but lands very very hard with his “6 kg of love” (aka. body) on one of us, preferrably on my breasts or the Better Halfs reproductive organs. Outch. He sleeps through the night though, lucky us :-) but is so sweet and annoying that you can’t be mad at him. I thought hard about this and if I could give you some advice, but the only thing I can come up with is that you maybe could try to let her terrorize you one or two or three nights, without giving her food and that that maybe trains her a bit. But then again, you can’t really train cats, they train you (as you also wrote)…. good luck with the sleep. Maybe you need to take a mini-break somewhere nice and quiet where you can just sleep and relax? Maybe even bring Dan :-)?
Take good care!
N
I hate to say it, but I think you have to consider letting her (insert dramatic pause here)…CRY IT OUT.
My renal insufficiency baby wants to eat at night, too. I feed her a can of Fancy Feast – that is her diet now (last year and before she got Iams adult hard food) – and Fancy Feast is not low protein, per the (debated and questionable)(desired?) renal recommendation. She lost so much weight on that low protein stuff last summer, eating the gravy and not the meat, that they said to just let her eat what she will. I always leave low protein hard food out, but she’ll yowl to get me up before she goes for that, however, she will turn to it if I’m gone. Thankfully, when I leave out a can of Fancy Feast at bedtime, she is usually set until morning.
What I suggest is letting her have your other cat’s food for a meal overnight or leave her something that she’ll eat on her own even if it’s off-diet. One meal out of 10 a day won’t make that much of a difference in your cat.
I am giving Sadie regular food to keep her weight up. It is otherwise against the rules, but sometimes rules don’t fit.
No advice as I don’t have cats… just hoping that your kitty feels better soon and that you eventually get some rest!!
The only thing that worked for me when my cat did this was just constantly putting him off the bed. Jump back on, put him off, jump back on, put him off – he got it eventually. Like deborah said “cry it out” – I know it’s awful and you won’t sleep for a while, but eh – sleep is overrated anyway, right?
I play dead until mine give up and try my husband! Even if I happen to be awake when they start agitating, I play dead because I don’t want them to start thinking that I might be responsive to their middle of the night please.
And ha! to crying it out. My cats would *never* give up. Never ever ever ever ever. Crazy would bound across the bed (and us), jump off the other side, run around and repeat a thousand times and we’d be all bruised. And if we looked them out, Hippo would pluck at the door *forever*.
You may have to live with this situation Amanda! they are creatures of habit and she’s not going to settle for a schedule now.
Mine is in constant need of attention and must follow me everywhere. On the rare occasion that we let zeus sleep with us, he is awake by 2 to play. As aggravating as it is, I love this little guy and in some twisted way, I don’t mind it.
I am smiling at the comments from the parents of fuzzy children here. i think it’s great.
Ah, mine used to think that 5:30am was an appropriate time for breakfast, even though she’d only have to wait 2 more hours for me to get up. I couldn’t stop it, the only thing that worked was her getting older. Eventually, she started sleeping in, too.
Have you talked to your vet? It seems like she’s eating a lot – unless she’s not eating whole portions each time you feed her. Maybe the vet can suggest something to add to her evening meal to fill her up a bit? That’s the only assvice I have – good luck!
My cat does the same thing. Crawls all over my head and kneads my hair but he’s just trying to find a place to sleep. His favorite spot is my head.
I was able to break his habit of wanting to go out at night by just ignoring him, but it was two weeks of torture and no sleep for anybody.
Good luck.
Also, if your cat is on benzapril for the kidneys, that is an appetite stimulant. I don’t know if your cat is on that, but it has made a difference in my cat’s appetite in addition to helping her renal numbers. Perhaps the time of day it is given would make a difference in the timing of the appetite.
Sorry, wish I could offer advice but haven’t any. Thinking of you.
Thanks for the advice everybody.
Cricket- No, she’s not on an appetite stimulant. We’ve had no problems with appetite so far.
projgen- Muffy is a nibbler. She’d much rather eat 10 small meals a day than 2-3 larger meals. I really don’t think she’s eating more than she did in the past. She’s just freaking nocturnal and wants to eat more at night.
My furbaby Lucy is probably the only cat on the planet that is totally unfazed by food, I suppose she knows it’s always there for her so she doesn’t have to make a fuss. In saying that though, I always make sure she has a full bowl of biscuits at night just in case she gets hungry (and I often wake up at 2am to the sound of crunching bikkies)- is this an option for Muffy? Or would she just eat them all?
Delurking here….
I had my kitty on Science Diet dry KD kibble…my vet said it was okay for my other kitty to eat it too, so my sick kitty and the well one did just fine eating the perscription kidney food. Have you asked your vet if your other kitty could eat it to? We did 2 years of pills, diet, and sub-q fluids for my kitty with renal failure, so i know how much you’ll do for those fur-babies.
We kind of have a similar problem. The only “solution” we have is to feed both kitties the special renal failure food. The other part of the solution is to only feed them once per day, right before bed. We feed them enough so that there is some left over in the morning, and by afternoon when it’s gone, the incessant whining is bearable because we aren’t sleeping.
I can sympathize as I have the exact same issue. Both my guys are on different prescription diets so I can’t just let them free feed. To make matters worse, Kobi is exactly like Muffy. He’s a nibbler so he won’t eat enough (or sometimes any) food when I set his dish down during the day. He prefers to eat frequently during the night and jumps up near my head, walks in my hair and meows right in my ear a few times during the night. As far as putting him off the bed everytime he jumps up, I’ve tried that and discovered that he can and will just keep jumping back up everytime I set him off and it could go on for the entire night.
I started trying to shut him in the bedroom at night along with his food then just letting him out during the middle of the night when I wake up (at which point he’s eaten all his food). Well, that would have worked great except for that my other cat starts banging against the bedroom door because he doesn’t like to be shut out. It sounds like you have the same issue with Salvador so that won’t work for you either.
Now, I find myself up frequently during the night and having to lie down to take a nap several times during the day. Basically, they are retraining me to be on their schedule.
Hope your able to come to a resolution with Muffy and find some sleep. I know how Puma is. You can not train him at all. If he wants something he will not stop until he gets it. Like crying at the door for 2 hours if he wants to go outside. Or playing leap frog on the bed at 2 in the morning if he’s out of food. The problem with my cat is he sleeps all day and nightime is a free for all.
I on the norm get awoken by him atleast 2 to 3 times a night. I’ve told B, we don’t need children we have a cat! You know I don’t feel like that though, but sometimes, they drive you insane. Good luck with the kitty situation.
Oh man, I do sympathize! My cat (Charlie, of course) would knock everything off my nightstand, one at a time, just to get me awake so I could play with him. I spray him with a waterbottle and he jumps down. Cruel, maybe, but it’s the only thing I had to keep me sane. He doesn’t do it anymore, so I think the spraying thing helped.
And I find it highly ironic that we infertiles get all this “practice” with getting up multiple times a night for our cats. It’s insane, dammit!
Can the other cat also eat the special food? One of our four is on special food for urinary health after nearly dying. Now they all just get it. We also leave bowls out for them instead of feeding them a few times a day because two of them fight constantly and can’t eat at the same time. It’s more expensive to feed them all prescription food, but it saves my sanity in the long run.
Hi, just stopping by to say hello and wish you the best of luck. We have two cats, ages 13 (who survived cancer) and 14 (just diagnosed with hyperthyroidism) and two dogs, one of which is 13 and going blind. (We also lost one of my dogs, my first “baby” a couple years ago to kidney failure when he was 11.) The only one we don’t worry about on a daily basis is our 3 year old pup. It’s all so hard – especially on top of everything else we’ve had to endure. Still, I thank God every day for my pets – I don’t think I would have survived these last 3 years without them.
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