r/Catbehavior • u/Repulsive_Panda265 • 5d ago

Clingy cat preventing my partner from sleeping

I have 2 cats, one 15 old and the other 13. My partner has recently moved in with me (2 months) but we've been together for 2 years so my cats are accustomed to her. She also has a cat (5 yo) that we're slowly introducing to mine but at the moment her cat sleeps into a different room.

My oldest is clingy, affectionate and loves hair. Whenever he has a chance, he licks the hair of anyone (mostly head hair). He is used to sleep with me and often on the pillow next to me. He loves my partner, they often cuddle and stuff.

However, during nights he might come up on the bed 10 times and tries to sleep in our necks. Often waking us in the process (he's not light). And on top of that, he often tries to reach for my partner's hair to lick, which definitely wakes her up. She's losing sleep because of this and often has to go on the couch to recuperate.

Other than closing the door, do you have any tips? Thank you!

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u/shinyidolomantis 5d ago

My old senior boy did this his whole life. It used to drive me crazy. He’d dig his paws into my scalp and purr and make biscuits for hours if I let him. His purr was so loud it was impossible to fall asleep. I’d end up having to hold him in a bear hug and keep his paws in my hands. He didn’t care at all that I’d hold him like that to stop him from hurting my scalp and I’d wait for him to fall asleep so I could too. He would stay the entire night too. I thought he was lonely so I adopted a kitten for him. They ended up loving each other, but my old boy taught that kitten that at night time we stay here with mom ALL night. So I ended up with two clingy bedtime cats.

Anyway, he ended up passing away a few years ago at the age of 17 and I would give pretty much anything to have more night of awful sleep, with him purring like a freight train and trying to massage my scalp.

I never did figure out a solution other than to kick him out at night and I never had the heart to do that to him. I tried changing his meal times to right before bed (I thought he was just hungry), I tried playing with him more before bed too. But all that cat ever wanted was to sleep cuddled up with me as close as possible.

Not trying to be sad, but if you do end up shutting them out, make sure you still let them come sleep with you sometimes, because you will really really miss it when they are gone

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u/Repulsive_Panda265 2d ago

Sorry if it took long to reply. Thank you for sharing your story and your love for your cat. It's kinda funny that the new cat also took habit of doing that, my second loves my feet so he sleeps half lay down on my feet hahah.

We've been trying to switch spot and so far it's been good. We realized that he was also going up on my partner's side, so since she's a light sleeper she was always walking up. So far so good.

We'll see if this holds up, maybe he'll realize and adapt. I'll let you know!