Feeding Time

[rowyn]

The biggest downside of replacing my waterbed mattress with a foam one is that I'm no longer sleeping on a giant hot water bottle in the winter. My bedroom isn't well-insulated and gets much colder than the rest of the house if the door isn't left open. So I've taken to leaving it open at night.

The disadvantage to that is my cat. I give her half a can of cat food twice a day: around 7AM and around 7PM. She also has dry food if she gets hungry in between.

At around 5AM, if the bedroom door is open, she will come in and meow at me: "feed me!"

Then I will get out of bed and go into the kitchen. My cat will follow me into the kitchen, and then run on ahead into the extention where I usually feed her.

Then I close the door between the kitchen and the extention, leaving her in the extention, without feeding her. And go back to bed for a couple of hours.

I keep thinking that either (a) she will learn not to wake me or (b) she will learn not to go into the extention until I actually feed her. So far, she has shown no signs of doing so.

I could lock her in the extention before I go to bed and forestall this whole thing, but she's often hard to locate late in the evening anyway. And she always goes into the extention unprompted in the morning. So. It works. At least until she works out (a) or (b).

Comments

[dejla.livejournal.com]

I had one who used to come in and sit on my side until I would get up and feed him. I would walk to the door -- he'd go out first -- and then I'd shut the door. He never got that. NEVER. He was with us ten or more years and he never never got that if he fussed to D, my roommate, she'd get up, but if she were gone, and he fussed to me, I would not get up.

Of course, he probably looked at it as "she just won't learn to get up and feed me". You know cats.

[emgrasso.livejournal.com]

I found after replacing my waterbed I had trouble falling asleep until the bed warmed up. Investing in a microwavable bed warmer helped enormously.

My cat seems willing to snuggle on the warmed bed in the early mornings until her actual breakfast time, though I also got her a heated cat pad one year for Christmas to replace the warmth of the waterbed when I am at work and the thermostat is lower.

[nkcmike.livejournal.com]

Have you considered an electric mattress pad? We found we needed one when we moved away from our waterbed.

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

Electric mattress pad or electric blanket. I cannot imagine how I went for so many years without one.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Put an electric blanket under the foam perhaps?