If you’re a feline-loving family, you’ve unquestionably heard the obvious pitter-patter of cat paws padding and attacking through your home during the night — when everybody (and whatever) is expected to be *sleeping.* Cats don’t care if you appear to school drop-off appearing like a mombie due to the fact that you just got 4 hours of shuteye. Cats do what they desire, and as cat owners understand all too well, that frequently consists of tossing what seems like middle-of-the-night cat raves. What’s the deal? Are cats nighttime? How do you get your cat to sleep during the night?!
Angela Kinsey comprehends the aggravation. Plus, she understands a thing or more about cats. Her renowned character in The OfficeAngela Schrute (née Martin), has 12 cats throughout the program.
And while Kinsey hasn’t rather reached that level of cat-lady status in reality, she deeply enjoys her feline member of the family, Snickers and Oreo. Something she doesn’t enjoy rather as much? Their fondness for being “super chatty” in the morning and running complete speed through your home during the night.
While cats aren’t nighttime, they are crepuscular, suggesting they’re most active at dawn and sunset. Even cats who appear like overall night owls aren’t nighttime — although it can certainly feel that method. In reality, a recent research study by Blue Buffalo (whom Kinsey has actually partnered with) discovered that half of cat moms and dads’ sleep is impacted by their cats’ nighttime activities.
This is a fact Kinsey can associate with on numerous levels.
“We have two cats, and they’re very different. We have Snickers, who loves to snuggle, which is awesome… except sometimes that snuggle at night means on my head. She likes to wrap herself around the top of my head as if she were my hat. And sometimes, as she falls asleep, she likes to try to eat my hair,” Kinsey informs Scary Mommy.
Kinsey’s other cat, Oreo, is their “super mischievous cat,” she confesses. “She’s always up to something, just climbing stuff, jumping off stuff. And, at night, she gets into everything! We come downstairs in the morning, and she has just drug out something and started to kind of take it apart.”
Oreo likewise occurs to be a really early bird — ”I’m talking around 4 a.m.,” Kinsey says. “She’s like, ‘Let’s do this; let’s go.’ And she’s running around with the zoomies, and she’s very chatty. This cat has a lot to say, but it’s always been about 5 a.m.”
Sounds familiar. So, what’s a sleep-lovin’, cat-owning individual to do? Through experimentation, Kinsey came across a couple of strong sleep options for her felines that benefit her whole household:
Put the House to Bed
“One of the things that was a big game-changer for us is that when we feed them their last meal, we go to bed,” Kinsey discusses. “That helps a lot with Snickers. She’ll eat that end-of-night meal, and then she wants to just snuggle.”
Get a Pet Feeder
No matter when the household goes to sleep, Oreo gets up with (or prior to) the sun. To offset this, Kinsey purchased a family pet feeder with a timer. “It even has a little voice activation, so we recorded ourselves saying, ‘Here, kitty, kitty!’ We set it for around 5:45/6 a.m., it goes off in the kitchen, and Oreo will run,” says Kinsey. “It shoots out a little bit of Blue Tastefuls dry cat food … then she won’t be at our door howling or climbing on our heads.”
Prioritize Daytime Playtime
Cats sleep a lot throughout the day — it’s their thing. As for Kinsey’s cats, she understands precisely where to discover them sleeping. “They have a chair in the living room. I mean, I bought this chair for us. I bought them cat beds; they don’t use them. They love this one chair,” she chuckles. Silver lining: That’s where the family goes when they wish to encourage the cats to get moving, and her youngest boy has a timeless strategy. “It looks like a little mouse that you point, and it shines a light,” Kinsey shares, including of the cats, “They love the little laser pointer.”
Include Them in the Daily Hubbub
“We have a house that’s moving and grooving because we have three kids, two little chihuahua rescues, and the two cats. So, there’s kind of always something going on. I think that helps the cats because there’s always going to be someone scooching them out of the chair to do something,” she discusses.
Kinsey likewise developed an active space for the cats to hang out in the middle of things: an “enormous” cat tree. “We’re true cat people because we have a cat tree right when you walk in,” she jokes. We attempted it all in your home, however they wish to be with us; they truly do. They’re so social. Now we have this huge cat tree in the cooking area — in the corner far from where we prepare — however we put little treats at the top, and they’ll climb it.”
Keep Them Well-Nourished
Like most cats, Kinsey’s are very fussy. But as an overall food lover herself — she’s a panelist on MTV’s Deliciousness and has a baking program on YouTube with her hubby, Joshua Snyder – she comprehends the value of nutrition (and taste) to general wellness. “I want them healthy and happy,” she says. “I want to feel good about what I’m feeding them. They’re my babies… my fur babies.”
With these little “cat hacks,” Kinsey and her family have actually recovered some sleep. Still, in news that will shock no cat owner, Kinsey admits that Snickers and Oreo still “run the house” at the end of the day.
