Cat at the bedroom door? How to save your sleep

Time for breakfast? If you want to stop your cat from begging for food in the morning, you should first get out of the habit of feeding it immediately after getting up. — HORST OSSINGER/dpa

Once the humans have gone to bed, many cats are ready to go on the prowl. But when kitty wants to play and you want to sleep, there’s only one surefire solution: closing the bedroom door.

But some cats won’t take the hint and instead loudly complain at your door all night or wake you up early for breakfast. What can a cat owner do about it?

It’s important to disconnect your getting up with the cat’s feeding, says IVH, Germany’s pet care association. When you give in, the cat thinks: I am hungry, now it’s time for breakfast!

Don’t feed your cat directly when you get up. Instead, work on a routine that lets the cat know when it’s feeding time, say, after the coffee machine has already run through its process. The noise will signal to the cat that it’s almost time for food.

If you vary the feeding times from day to day, cats are likely to be less demanding, and owners can enjoy sleeping in on their days off.

As for the nightly serenades, it’s best to ignore them. This is the only way the animal will learn that its efforts to attract attention won’t work, says IVH cat expert Helga Hofmann. – dpa