Cat wont let me sleep :(

rannerap

A few weeks ago I got a cat from a rescue centre. He is 2 and a half. He was born and lived his whole life in a research facility so this is his first time living in a house environment/getting used to living with people. I have 2 other cats, a 4 and a 2 year old. They get into their beds in our bedroom when we go to bed and you usually dont hear a peep from them unless they decide to come over and sleep on the bed with us. All the cats get on grand and all are completely settled by the time we sleep.

The new cat likes to sleep on the end of the bed and all is fine for the first few hours after we get into bed. The problem is that during the night he will wake up and obsessively try groom my hair/chew on it. No matter how many times I stop him by placing him beside me after lifting him off my pillow, he is straight back at it a few minutes later. I have long hair(female) so I dont know if this is part of it, he does occasionally go groom my partner (male) but not even a fraction of how much he does it to me. He wakes me and keeps me up for large portions of the night. I just dont know what else to do to get him to stop. If we put him in the other room he screams, constantly, all night. we live in an apartment so you can hear it and probably the neighbours can too. I have a feliway plugged in, in case its stress and to calm him. I also play with all the cats for ages before bed time to give them some exercise and to tire them before bed. This has only started within the last few days, before this he was fine and slept through the night.

Are there any other things I can do that I might not have thought of?

Ms Doubtfire1

did you change your shampoo lately? Or anything that makes you smell different?

rannerap

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

did you change your shampoo lately? Or anything that makes you smell different?

Nope! Everything is the same as it was when we got him. He does it to my partner a bit too, but not nearly as much. He tends to favour sleeping beside me and sitting beside me on the couch, and I do all his feeding and looking after him. I was thinking maybe its a comfort thing?

Ms Doubtfire1

Well, generally its a sign of affection. I have an oriental who does it to me and a moggie who sleeps next to my pillow who does it when i drift of. But with her s simple pet and a hug stops her,she curls up into a purring ball and goes to sleep..

https://www.thespruce.com/cats-grooming-humans-553935

Teyla Emmagan

Do you sleep with your hair up? The less hair he can get at the less grooming. Sounds like he just wants to be close to you. If you leave a space for him on the pillow and block him from touching your head he should settle down. When I got my cat he wanted to sleep on my neck, or failing that, my head all the time. He grew out of it, but it was certainly very uncomfortable (and hot) for a while. Now he only occasionally wants such intense contact at night and giving him some pillow is normally enough.

Chris Martin

Understand it's annoying but sounds adorable... :P

Have a number of cats at home, some ours, some owned in area (countryside), but the same 2 stay in at nights.
One is the oldest of the lot, maybe 3ish, and the other about 6 months old.
Young one will run around non-stop, playing with big cat and eventually tire itself out and sleep on end of bed.
The older cat is the issue really, Dobby she's called.
She is a big cat, eats well and sleeps well, but still able to hunt in fairness.
At night though, when everyone's settled down, she'll get up from wherever she is, come to the bed and knead you, like they would a pillow, to get comfortable and sleep on top of you.
Suspect it likes the heat and comfort but it makes sleeping impossible.
Kitten is mostly alright but when she's hungry she'll let you know by scaling you.. :P

Love them, never has them chewing anything for an extended period of time, strange but sounds like affection as you'd know straight away if they were hungry. Dobby isn't the kittens mother but they still have ritual washing sessions :P

rannerap

Yeah I have been sleeping with my hair in a bun to minimise it as much as possible. I?m no stranger to being woken up with the other 2 but this is on another level. When I wake up he is always purring, which is what made me think it was a comfort thing. But even after fussing over him and settling him he starts back up a few minutes later. He does it even if one/both of the other cats are on/beside me.

He is a demon for food, but I dont think its because hes hungry. When the 4 year old is hungry she meows constantly and bites my hands until I wake up and she sounds annoyed. Where as he seems to be more chilled when doing it.

I know theres worse things to be happening, and I cant be annoyed at him. Even if he is stealing all my sleep :P

kathleen37

Wear a hat or a shower cap???

daheff

would you not throw him out of the bedroom when he starts this (not literally)? After a couple of nights he'll get the message.

I guess the hungryness is just a reflex from living in the facility....might have been a case of eat when you got it...so he's learnt to eat when food is available.

Once he see food consistently turn up in reasonable quantities i'd *imagine* he'll settle down.

rannerap

He screams the place down and sounds very distressed if we put him in to the next room. We had to keep him separate when we brought him home to slowly introduce him to the other 2. It was so bad one of us ended up staying in the room with him until he was mixed with the other 2. I let the other 2 stay in the room so I don?t think its fair on him to just throw him out at night by himself.

I guess I'm more just looking for some advice on how to get him to settle and keep him calm and reassured.

él statutorio

Not sure if this helps, but, do you swim?

Whenever anyone is our house has been to the pool one of our cats (the other cat has zero interest) will go nuts trying to groom people when she smells the chlorine.

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él statutorio

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Ahh, that makes sense.

It does make me wonder about the cleaning habits of the other cat in that case!

kathleen37

Have you tried getting all the cats settled in another room? Having them all relocate at night?

I got a new cat a couple of months ago. He had spent the first 6 months of his life in a shed and the next 3 in a kennel so like your fella wasn't used to a home and all the love. He was very affectionate with me from the off and was always climbing onto my shoulders and chewing and licking my hair. Like you I assumed he was getting comfort from it and showing me affection. He only did it during the day though. But it stopped after a few weeks, once he was more settled.

If your fella doesn't let up would crating him at night be an option? You could cosy it up for him and put it right next to your bed where he could see you?

Bunnyslippers

It sounds like he's just very happy and is doing the grooming thing as a comfort, how about a really shaggy soft fluffy type rug/blanket or even a large squidgy soft toy to put near your head to start with and as others have said wear a hat so he can't get at your hair, then try and redirect his comfort behaviour onto something else? If he does like that then you can gradually move it down the bed until he is sleeping where you want him to! Failing that try going to bed with wet hair or with oil in it to try and make it unattractive to him? Lots of my cats have gone nuts for fluffy blankets and will keep kneading and purring on them for hours sometimes!!:rolleyes:
We have 2 kittens which i found on a main road - one sleeps across your throat and purrs all night the other sits on top of you and purrs, with another reject sitting by your ear so I can sympathise!!;)

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Milly33

Sounds like maybe tis an affection thing or like you are his pal, so he is grooming you...

Best thing to do is try and nip it in the bud, which may involve being mean (not mean as in cruel) but creating boundaries...

My chap was a resuce too and jaysus he has the thing where he will climb up on my chest and start like, licking the shoulder of my tshirt or whatever top i have on.. Suppose to him it is like suckling (sounds so much weirder than it is).. He will do the same to my partner sometimes but it is more me he does it too.. funny at the start but then it gets a little annoying.. We dont sleep with the cat in the room, but he comes in, in the morning and would start.. My top would just be covered in drule.. So i just had to stop him.. Move his head away or just block him for doing it.. eventully he got the message.. It did take a while but sure training does.. he still does it the odd time but no where near as bad..

rannerap

He was a lot better last night. he didnt start the hair grooming until after 6 am. He spent the bulk of the night purring away on my pillow and cuddling up to my face. Once he started it was back to the normal, nothing would dissuade him.

I sleep with a fluffy blanket covering me over the duvet every night anyway. He hasnt shown any interest in it. the other 2 tend to knead it and fall asleep on it quite a bit but him not so much. Its just people he seems to want to be close to. But I'm hoping he keeps on improving from last night!

gctest50

....... wrote: »

Im very jealous of all these purring cats who sleep by peoples heads. ........

Bad sign when they start doing that out of the blue


http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp078108#t=article

TresGats

Hi OP, it's great to hear of these cats getting new, loving homes.
We adopted a stray one Winters night in 2012, she was completely ecstatic to have found a home and never stopped purring for days, so much so she was nearly called "Happy'. Also she wanted very much to be in with the 'family' in my bedroom, and wanted cuddles an awful lot at the start.
I'm sure she will calm down in time, when she realises you are not going anywhere.
P.s- another of my cats is also called Dobby!
Also find soft fluffy throws (in Penneys for around a fiver) great to comfort cats.

rannerap

TresGats wrote: »

Hi OP, it's great to hear of these cats getting new, loving homes.
We adopted a stray one Winters night in 2012, she was completely ecstatic to have found a home and never stopped purring for days, so much so she was nearly called "Happy'. Also she wanted very much to be in with the 'family' in my bedroom, and wanted cuddles an awful lot at the start.
I'm sure she will calm down in time, when she realises you are not going anywhere.
P.s- another of my cats is also called Dobby!
Also find soft fluffy throws (in Penneys for around a fiver) great to comfort cats.

Thanks hes been a dream other than this, which he is thankfully calming down a bit on! I wasnt looking for another cat when we got him. We already had two, but I went with someone else to the <snip> when they were looking and fell in love. Glad we gave him a chance! Yeah I bought a few yesterday, he has no interest and likes to just lie in the most uncomfortable places around the house instead. Typical cat :pac:

TresGats

Cats tend to find you, rather than the other way around I find.

Ms Doubtfire1

TresGats wrote: »

Cats tend to find you, rather than the other way around I find.

agreed. Although I have the funny idea that will stop soon enough at my house as everyone who walks in here that male walks out 2 stones lighter. And all females are getting a tummy tuck..:P