Cat Lover’s Site

If your cats are kept active during the day and stimulated you might be able to turn their schedules around.

no good luck

Absolutely not. Cats, by nature are nocturnal animals, taking advantage of the dark of night to do their hunting. My cat Hershey is a delight but at night she loses her mind! I have started putting her in the basement with food and water and closing the door behind her. She hates it but it’s the only way to get rest at night. Good Luck. Cats sleep 18 hours a day so you can’t control that type of schedule.

Nope, the only way you can hope to get her to sleep at night is to keep her awake as much as you can during the day. Even then, cats usually do not sleep a full eight hours at once, but take a series of several short ‘cat naps’ throughout the day and night. After putting your daughter to bed, spend a good amount of time playing with the cat, with a laser pointer or a feather-wand, to get them to expend as much energy as possible and wear them out good, if you try playing with them several times for short periods throughout the day to keep them awake and an 30 minute to hour long play session at night before bed, you just may wear them out enough to keep them asleep most the night, or at least keep calm through the night, not chasing each and etc. Good luck!

You’ll never get cats on a schedule like children, but it is possible to tire them out enough so they will sleep for a bit. (they call short naps catnaps for a reason)

When I want to tire out the cats, I get out the wand toy with the feather attachment. It’s their favorite and they exert a lot of energy playing with it. Also, sometimes I’ll give them some catnip after they start getting tired of the play - it sort of temporarily re-energizes them for a bit, but then they crash hard when it wears off.

The other option is isolating them somewhere where they wont bother you while you sleep.

Oh how I feel your pain? Our two cats used to convenientally decide to race up and down the halls just as we were trying to go to sleep.

While they are nocturnal by nature, I do believe you can wear them out a little by playing with them right before bed time. Get a toy or a string and get them running around. Be interactive. That will help.

But if possible, you might also want to look into keeping them confined to a certain room at night. Maybe the room with their litter box? Also leave out some food and water for them.

They will tug on your heart strings with those sad eyes, but as long as they are left with room to move, a place to use the bathroom, and food and water, you’re not doing anything wrong
Good luck!

Cats are “crepuscular,” which means they are most active at dawn and dusk. This is because their ancestors’ prey was most active at these times, so it made sense for them to adjust to that schedule. They do sleep at night, but just not for as long as we do.

The article below written by Dr. Nicholas Dodman has advice and suggestions on ways in which you can encourage your cats to spend more time asleep at night, which you may find helpful.