Hi,

I have been on and off this forum since getting my bengals 9 years ago but this is the first time I've posted.

It is brilliant having somewhere to come to when I need reminding that my cats are 'just being bengals' lol. I am struggling with them at the moment as they have decided 4.30am is a great time to wake me up, which does not please me in the slightest.

I moved house middle of last year and both cats have had to adjust to not just a new house but no longer having access to their outdoor run (which I do plan on getting rebuilt) and no longer have their 'own' bedroom. They now have free roam of the house at night which they have never had before, this gives them the opportunity to scratch my bedroom door and howl for attention at 4.30am!

I will try and upload pics of my handsome boy Elmo and his gorgeous sister Boo but not too great with technology.
xx

Welcome to the forum.

My 2 are always kept in their room overnight, except when I on occasion think "it would be nice for them to be free at night and roam around, perhaps they might snuggle up to me as well".

It *never* works that way. I get zooms, get used as a trampoline, Babbage wants to crawl under the duvet. Ada wants to savage my leg at 3:30, they walk over me and I generally crawl out of bed completely knackered and promising never to do it again.

So I am going to say that I am a proponent of keeping 2 doors between myself and the cats at night time.

Hi Cranberry,

I wish I could keep 2 doors between me and my two at night but had to move to a smaller 2 bed house and don't have a spare bedroom anymore. I am also getting some work done in the house but hopefully once the kitchen is finished I can put them in there at night. My only worry with that is what mischief they could get up to, at least when they had their own bedroom there was nothing in it for them to wreck lol

They do sleep with me sometimes if I've been out with friends and come home late, I feel bad that they've been lonely all night so let them cuddle up but it always ends up with me getting very little sleep!

So happy you have finally decided to post -- we love interacting with ALL our forum members. I've owned cats for 55 years and every one of them has woken me up in the middle of the night. My current kitty, a bengal, is better about sleeping through the night at times, but this morning, he woke me up at 3:30 a.m. Sometimes, it's 4:30 a.m. Sometimes it's 1 a.m. I get up, feed him, and I go back to bed and sleep and he joins me. It's just one of many kitty quirks.

I've never had this problem with any cats that I've had. Maybe it's partially luck, but maybe it's also that I am really stubborn about not giving in to that stuff in the middle of the night. If they wake me up, or hurt me or whatever, then I just put them outside and shut the door. No amount of meowing or scratching at the door or whatever will cause me to get up. I can sleep through it. I think they get the point, that it won't result in what they want, and then they adapt to my schedule. Maybe someday I'll "meet my match" with a cat that is as stubborn as I am, but I haven't yet :)

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The little monsters 3