The secret that absolutely works for teaching cats not to wake you up early

An oldie from psych 101 you can apply to your pets, your kids, your in-laws, or any other living creature:

All animals, including humans, tend to repeat an action if it proves rewarding for them in any way.
Well of course, we might think, but how can I reward my cat for letting me sleep? I can’t exactly give him a kitty treat for a negative, for not waking me up! If he lets me sleep late, he’s not getting anything good at all. Why not punish him instead, when he does wake me?

Sure, cats may avoid an action that causes an effect they hate, but they’ll much more quickly taper off and stop doing a behavior if they get no results from it at all, if their action seems to be totally “wasted.”

Have you ever tried knocking on a door and heard nothing on the other side? At first you may knock even louder, thinking that perhaps the person inside just can’t hear you. But eventually you’re going to stop knocking and go away.

Likewise, if your cat is doing a behavior trying to get a reaction from you in the mornings, you can’t give him any response, whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant, if you want him to stop doing that. He may temporarily escalate his attempts to wake you and get you to play with him or feed him at first, but if you’re consistent and never react to his overtures at all, eventually he’ll learn that the behavior is a total waste of energy and will give up entirely.

In the latter situation, we say that the unwanted behavior has been extinguished.

Of course we can’t try to extinguish all unwanted behavior from our cats by simply ignoring it. Some behaviors are intrinsically rewarding to an animal even though we humans don’t do anything to provide the reward. One example of that is clawing and scratching furniture. Your cat gets quite a rewarding feeling from digging into rugs and sofas with her claws and stretching her muscles, so ignoring scratching of furniture would not deter the behavior at all, and instead you’d just end up with shredded furniture! In fact most of the problem behaviors we get from cats will have to be dealt with by making the act unpleasant (such as, for example, putting heavy foil on an area of rug the cat wants to wet) or by rearranging the environment (for example, cleaning the litter more often or changing brands).

However, when a cat is trying to wake you, any and all reinforcement for that behavior comes from your reaction, so the best thing to do is to play dead. It’s hard to do sometimes, and it may feel like you’re still letting the cat get by with waking you up, but remember, the cat would never meow at a wall or a sink. No creature would continue to vocalize at an inanimate object. So an inanimate object is what you must become if it’s 4 am and Kitty starts playing with your feet or purring in your ear.

Don’t move a muscle, and that includes your eyelids, if your cat is playing with you, even if you really need to get up and go to the bathroom. Wait until she’s given up and lain back down in her sleeping spot then go straight to the bathroom then get back into your bed without looking at her. You don’t want her to detect any cause-and-effect for her actions and your subsequent getting up for the day. What gets you up should be your alarm clock or something else she can’t control but can see and hear. Eventually she’ll know that she must wait for that signal before you’ll be up and available for her.

It might take a few mornings of giving your cat no response at all to her early morning overtures, but eventually she will give up on controlling your wake-up time. Then you and she will be able to develop a routine that fits you both.

Nowadays my own two cats jump onto the bed around 10:30 every evening and settle down. They like to sleep on towels and tend to stay on them better than on the bed alone, so I put two towels on the bed for them and change the towels every few days.
In the mornings, one of them leaves the bed early to go look out the window, and the other stays on the bed no matter what, until my alarm goes off, because she wants to be the first to know when it’s time to get up! She doesn’t try to wake me up anymore though, because she knows I will not budge no matter what she does. Once I turn off the alarm or otherwise signal that we’re going to the kitchen, then she joyfully jumps off the bed and both cats run to the kitchen, meowing loudly all the way.

But seriously, why doesn’t yelling at a cat change this behavior?

Your cat will notice if you yell at him all right, and he’ll probably run, but you can bet the behavior will be repeated again very soon, because he’s just so happy to have you up and around!

My mom used to have a cat that would come and scratch on the side of her bed as soon as the sun came up each day. The scratching would make my mom mad – so mad that she’d jump out of bed and chase the cat through the house, yelling furiously at her!
Then of course after all that running and yelling, she couldn’t get back to sleep. As she learned, yelling at a cat doesn’t extinguish a behavior like waking us up early; in fact, getting any reaction from her mom at all at that time of day was very rewarding for the kitty, so she repeated it every day!

Even if your cat doesn’t get food from you when she wakes you up early, she’s glad to see some effect from her behavior. So make sure she gets none. That means making sure you don’t open your eyes and look at her, and if you have her closed out of your room make sure she can’t rattle the door (you may need to stuff something like a towel under the door to keep it quiet and still).

Signal Your Cat When It’s Time to Get Up

Since we don’t want the cat to decide when you get up, you need to give her some sort of sign when it’s “fair game” to meow at you and start her day with you. Like I said, I can get up and go to the bathroom or even go into the hall and change the thermostat without my cats moving a muscle, because they know it’s not breakfast time until I click my alarm clock off.

You want to be able to get up briefly if you have to without starting Kitty’s day, so be sure you follow a routine and he’ll start noticing what your day-starting signal is too. Maybe you wear a retainer or night-guard on your teeth, so he hears you remove that, brush it, and put it in its case each morning. Or maybe you put on your glasses or your robe when you’re up for good. Your cat is an excellent student of you and your behav-ior, so just pick something that works and be consistent. Only after you’ve given the signal will you go to the kitchen and make Kitty’s day.

Don’t Start Down a Slippery Slope

If you want to sleep and it’s already daylight, be sure not to send the cat mixed signals. Here are things I’ve found I can’t do in the early morning without giving my cats the false encouragement that starts them vocalizing and bothering me before I’m ready to be awake for the day:
• Don’t reach out and pet him
• Don’t make eye contact with him
• Don’t rise up and look at the alarm clock (you can always have a little clock or your cell phone in the bathroom to look at where he can’t see).

Mornings Can Be Great Again!

You and your cat are always training each other, by interacting and developing a routine together. Your cat can fit into your household in a very harmonious way as a nice member of the family, if you do not let him fool you into entertaining or feeding him in the middle of the night.
Once you decide to extinguish his unwanted morning attention, be sure to be consistent, because if he gets any reaction out of playing with your feet or licking your nose, then that’s what he’ll do every day.

Instead, let him have his social and feeding times with you at a time you’ve chosen ahead of time, on your schedule. You’ll feel a lot more well-rested, and he’ll be happy to have you at your best, ready to play with him!

Photo credit: Average Jane