One of my cats keeps trying to sleep across my neck. She does it several times a night. I immediately wake up and put her on the floor, but she's not taking the hint. Does anyone have any suggestions? If I shut her out of the room, she tries to get in by clawing through the carpet. There's already a hole in the carpet outside the door, so keeping her out of the room isn't a good option. She's really interfering with my sleep. Help!
By Stephanie from Hillsboro, OR
Have you heard the old saying "If you can't beat them, join them."? (as in 'defeat' not 'beat them physically', LOL). My cat started trying to sleep on the top of my head just this past Winter (who knows why when she's eight years old and never did that before) so what I tried was slowly lifting my head up until she rolled off of it, then scooted myself up and laid my head (gently and without full weight on top of her of course) like she was my new pillow instead of my head being her pillow. She fairly quickly decided that wasn't comfortable nor suitable and moved. It only took a few shorts nights for her to choose to sleep next to the top of my head instead of on it. ;-)
Cats think differently than dogs. Any attempt to change what a cat wants to do is seen by them as an obstacle to overcome. The only way to thwart a cat's plan is to make it so the cat no longer wants to do the thing that is annoying you.
My cat tried this as a kitten, as well as, waking us to play at all hours of the night. What I did was get a large dog cage and put a small litter box on one end, a padded stool for him to sleep on on the other end, with water and a bit of dry food under that.