How do I get enough sleep with a hungry kitty at home?

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Dasha and Kabosu

Dasha and Kabosu

Member Since 2021
Kabosu-san's diabetes is still not well regulated, so most days he is very hungry.
He is asking for food very often and eats a lot in general. I am trying to feed him small portions every other hour, mixing a 1-2 table spoons of wet food with water.
He is also a neighbourhood cat who is used to go wherever he wants, he'd enter any open door he sees and start begging for food. These past few days I'm not letting him wander on his own (although I take him for walks sometimes) watching what he's doing.

So usually when I refuse to feed him (after he ate 2x his daily allowance), he'd just start meowing to let him out (so he can eat elsewhere). I am resisting, but that's extremely annoying at night. He'd just come to my bed, sit beside my face and meow, and if I try to ignore him, he starts scratching the carpet until I get up and give him food. This happens 3-5 times during the night. I am exhausted and not getting enough sleep. I also need to work during the day. The bad thing is that I believe he knows that once he starts destroying the carpet, I will get up... He knows that works better than meow. Ah, sometimes I leave a bit of food in his bowl when I go to bed, yet he goes straight to me meowing for food without even checking the kitchen!


Any ideas how to NOT feed my cat every couple of hours during the night? I really need to sleep!
 
Dasha said:
sometimes I leave a bit of food in his bowl when I go to bed, yet he goes straight to me meowing for food without even checking the kitchen!
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One of my kitties had real food insecurity issues, and he used to wake me umpteen times a night too without checking the kitchen. ...You may not like the solution I found...but in the end I took cat food up to bed with me and put it in the bedroom (near the door) so that he'd actually have to walk past it to get to me... That worked. But it was necessary to get over the yuckiness of having cat food in the bedroom. I managed to do that. My hubby not so much.... :rolleyes:
 
Elizabeth and Bertie said:
...You may not like the solution I found...but in the end I took cat food up to bed with me and put it in the bedroom (near the door) so that he'd actually have to walk past it to get to me... That worked. But it was necessary to get over the yuckiness of having cat food in the bedroom.
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:D:D:D
Do you have an automated feeder? That will work but only for one mini-meal, once that's eaten I'll have to get up.
 
Dasha said:
Do you have an automated feeder?
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I am the automated feeder in our house, haha! ...My lot have got me well trained... :smuggrin:

My boy was a nibbler, so he didn't usually eat it all at once. (And I kept a couple of spare cans of cat food on the windowsill, just in case...)
But it may well be that an automated feeder (other than the human sort, hehe!) would work better for you.

...Just wondering too if there is any chance that your kitty is getting bored sometimes rather than getting hungry...? Are there toys that he can play with...? Chase toys? Catnip toys? A cardboard box or two...?
 
Elizabeth and Bertie said:
I am the automated feeder in our house, haha!
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Hahahaha! So am I, but I'm not that well automated, and I really like sleeping at night :D


Elizabeth and Bertie said:
...Just wondering too if there is any chance that your kitty is getting bored sometimes rather than getting hungry...?
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That's quite possible, but in those cases he normally takes me to the entrance rather than to the kitchen. He does not like toys at all, although he loves chasing real mice, birds and even squirrels. He used to hunt at night when he was healthy (and come back with gifts in the morning).
 
What about leaving frozen "ice cubes" of food out at night, so as it slowly melts he gets some food?

Our cats are messy eaters. So we took a clear plastic storage box, probably what they call sweater-size, and cut down one side, leaving just a 1/2" rim on that side, to put the food bowls in. This way, anything that gets dropped or licked over the side of the bowl is contained in this high-sided plastic tray. Then we can just pick up the tray and clean it out, instead of having to clean up cat food remains from the floor or rug.
 
Also, have you considered using a squirt bottle of water on him at night? Cats usually learn pretty quickly to stop doing annoying things when they get squirted for doing them.

My sister had an indoor-outdoor cat who liked to roam and hunt. At 3am every morning, the cat would wake her housemate to let him out the door to go roaming (cat knew my sister would not get up, but the housemate was a softy.) Sister decided this was ridiculous, so they put in a cat door; cat could now come and go as he pleased.
Well, the cat started bringing in his kills. Then, he started bringing in live birds that he'd just caught but not killed yet. And of course they'd get loose, and my sister was faced with trying to get flying, bleeding birds out of the house, while the cat was madly pursuing them to try and get them back in his grip. Once the bird was gone, she'd then have to clean up the blood splatters that were all over the walls. After the third one, she was so fed up she closed up the cat door.

And that night, at 3am, upon finding his cat door was taped shut, the cat walked up, not to the housemate, but onto my sister's chest, meowed loudly, and PEED ON HER.
She and all her bedding were soaked in cat pee, at 3am. Cat is lucky he lived through the night.
 
Gracie85 said:
Also, have you considered using a squirt bottle of water on him at night? Cats usually learn pretty quickly to stop doing annoying things when they get squirted for doing them.

My sister had an indoor-outdoor cat who liked to roam and hunt. At 3am every morning, the cat would wake her housemate to let him out the door to go roaming (cat knew my sister would not get up, but the housemate was a softy.) Sister decided this was ridiculous, so they put in a cat door; cat could now come and go as he pleased.
Well, the cat started bringing in his kills. Then, he started bringing in live birds that he'd just caught but not killed yet. And of course they'd get loose, and my sister was faced with trying to get flying, bleeding birds out of the house, while the cat was madly pursuing them to try and get them back in his grip. Once the bird was gone, she'd then have to clean up the blood splatters that were all over the walls. After the third one, she was so fed up she closed up the cat door.

And that night, at 3am, upon finding his cat door was taped shut, the cat walked up, not to the housemate, but onto my sister's chest, meowed loudly, and PEED ON HER.
She and all her bedding were soaked in cat pee, at 3am. Cat is lucky he lived through the night.
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Oh my!.. What a story!
We used to leave the window open for ours, and he also started bringing his prey in... He'd bring a live mouse home and then sit calmly and watch us catching it! They sometimes say cats do this to teach us humans how to hunt. Well, ours was pretty successful, we actually did learn how to catch mice :D

Gracie85 said:
Also, have you considered using a squirt bottle of water on him at night? Cats usually learn pretty quickly to stop doing annoying things when they get squirted for doing them.
Click to expand...

I had that idea of splashing some water on him, but I felt a bit bad for doing this to a sick kitty. I may try it tonight, thank you! I REALLY hope he won't pee on me!
 
You can get automated feeders with more than one compartment. A lot of people use this one: Catmate
I've never used it but I believe it allows you to put small ice packs under it.
 
Dasha and Kabosu said:
Oh my!.. What a story!
We used to leave the window open for ours, and he also started bringing his prey in... He'd bring a live mouse home and then sit calmly and watch us catching it! They sometimes say cats do this to teach us humans how to hunt. Well, ours was pretty successful, we actually did learn how to catch mice :D



I had that idea of splashing some water on him, but I felt a bit bad for doing this to a sick kitty. I may try it tonight, thank you! I REALLY hope he won't pee on me!
Click to expand...

When you use a squirt bottle, the amount of water that hits them is really very tiny. But they hate it, so it works. Our cats have always quickly gotten to the point where just the threat of the squirt bottle works, and they don't even need to be squirted. Had one cat who just had to see me start turning my head, looking for the squirt bottle, and she was GONE! Had a roommate who was in the kitchen when she saw our cats chasing each other across the dining room table. Didn't have a squirt bottle within reach, so she picked up a bottle of maple syrup, pointed it at them and made a "shhhht! shhhhht!" noise at them, and they ran off as if they had been squirted. It becomes a highly effective technique very quickly, with most cats.

And even if they are sick, they're still misbehaving. A little discipline won't hurt. And my sister's cat is the only one I've ever heard of that deliberately peed on his human because he was mad. I wouldn't have thought he was that smart, but, evidently he was....
 
Dasha and Kabosu said:
Kabosu-san's diabetes is still not well regulated, so most days he is very hungry.
He is asking for food very often and eats a lot in general. I am trying to feed him small portions every other hour, mixing a 1-2 table spoons of wet food with water.
He is also a neighbourhood cat who is used to go wherever he wants, he'd enter any open door he sees and start begging for food. These past few days I'm not letting him wander on his own (although I take him for walks sometimes) watching what he's doing.

So usually when I refuse to feed him (after he ate 2x his daily allowance), he'd just start meowing to let him out (so he can eat elsewhere). I am resisting, but that's extremely annoying at night. He'd just come to my bed, sit beside my face and meow, and if I try to ignore him, he starts scratching the carpet until I get up and give him food. This happens 3-5 times during the night. I am exhausted and not getting enough sleep. I also need to work during the day. The bad thing is that I believe he knows that once he starts destroying the carpet, I will get up... He knows that works better than meow. Ah, sometimes I leave a bit of food in his bowl when I go to bed, yet he goes straight to me meowing for food without even checking the kitchen!


Any ideas how to NOT feed my cat every couple of hours during the night? I really need to sleep!
Click to expand...
Have you had him checked by a vet for worms or parasites since he's an outdoor cat?
 
How much does your cat weigh? Is it a good weight for him? How many calories are you feeding him now per day?

Most of us feed at least 4 times a day, not twice.
 
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