New kitten panic - kitten proofing & sleeping advice

[lauramdavies]

I’m about to get two kitties as of Monday, about 12-14 weeks old, and I’m fully panicking about keeping them safe. Hoping to get some advice.

My plan was to give them the living room initially to live in, and for them to stay in there at night. (There is no way I can make the upstairs of our home kitten proof with a preschooler and work from home dad with 3 computers and 6 monitored wiring everywhere, and we are about to have builders in.)

I was hoping not to entertain them at night but to leave them in their with their toys, food etc. and try to ignore any crying. My husband says that I’ll never manage that and it’s like cry it out with babies - cruel. So I guess my first question is what to do..?! Should I maybe try to sleep in there on the sofa (if my daughter lets me!) for a week or so? I’m worried if I do that then they will expect me to play at night.

The living room has floor to ceiling shelves and my husband is convinced they will climb them and get stuck. So now I’m worried if I hear them cry at night I will have to check on them for safety. Anyone have experience with shelves and what can be done?

I’m having kittens!! In all sense of the word. Any advice or reassurance much appreciated.

[fjm]

Congratulations! Let the games begin...!

Two kittens are going to play wherever and whenever, upstairs or down. I think they will be more dependent on each other's company for confidence at this stage, assuming they are siblings, and may not be as desperate for human company as a single kitten or a puppy might be, so crying may not be an issue. But climbing bookcases, curtains, furniture and anything else interesting is almost a given. I would think about rooms that may be more easily kitten-proofed - kitchen, bathroom, spare bedroom - and perhaps leave them there at night and when you cannot supervise rather than in the living room until you are better acquainted with them and their climbing capabilities. In the meantime move all those small breakable objects you moved off the low down shelves as your daughter got more mobile off the higher shelves and into a cupboard, and assume that anything that can get knocked off a surface - table, shelf, mantelpiece - will get pushed off onto the floor and put anything potentially dangerous away as well.

Remember they may need some time to adjust and may need a safe place to hide while they grow accustomed to your family and home. I have had kittens that hid for days, and kittens that took possession as soon as they were out of the carry crate - the important thing is to go at their pace.

[Mollycat]

Firstly, panic is not a good vibe to start your kitties in their life with you. Neither, for that matter, is tensions over how to bring them up.

At 3 months old they will fall off things and get stuck having climbed and not wanting to jump down. They will knock stuff off surfaces and may well climb curtains, and get into mischief any way you haven't foreseen no matter how good you are. They will test to the limit your resolve, your patience, and your anxiety.

Being two of them they should play together and so resisting the temptation to give in when you shouldn't ought to be easier than with one. If they cry, they're not lonely, they have each other, so don't fall for that trick or they will run rings around you their whole life. You can always give them a bed with a snuggle blanket, and you can put a ticking clock under it to mimick Momma cat's heartbeat if you think they need comforting.

Try to enjoy this crazy time and put hazards into proportion. Don't rush to save a 3 month old kitten about to fall from the dizzy heights of a sofa onto a soft carpet, for your own sanity and their essential life lessons limit your definition of a hazard to real dangers, and let them make mistakes and learn and more importantly push their limits.

[lauramdavies]

Thanks @mollycat and @fjm, I appreciate the advice!

There’s definitely excitement and joy as well as panic, but I just want to get advice to do the best I can.

Unfortunately we don’t have a spare room and the bathroom is the size of a 2 pence piece so those aren’t options. I thought about the kitchen but was mindful of the advice that they should have somewhere peaceful to be initially, not in a busy room and the kitchen is always busy and often noisy.

So living room seemed like the only option. I have already moved all the breakable things. I suppose I’m only concerned that if they do cry at night and I ignore it, it could be because one has climbed to a high shelf and can’t get down. :-/

Sadly it seems they aren’t coming tomorrow after all as they’ve got fleas a d need treatment first. So more time to ponder kitty proofing etc.

Thanks again

[fjm]

Way back when, cross-patch Rosie lured Tiggy the kitten up a big tree in the field behind where we live and left him there.In the dark. In a thunder storm. At 1am when everyone was in bed. Several attempts at getting him down by climbing the tree myself just had him back along narrow branches further and further out of reach and in the end I had to leave him there till daylight, when with ladders and a helpful neighbour he was finally persuaded down, none the worse for the experience. Climbing high and getting stuck is what kittens do, but mostly they manage to workout a way down by themselves.

[Ruth B]

Congratulations on the new arrivals, when they finally arrive.

I'haven't any experience with kittens, at least not since i was a child, as I've only adopted adult cats. However there is one tip I have heard and will pass on as they are going to be in a lounge. if your lounge is anything like ours then there are likely to be some some electrical cables about, and some kittens love to chew these, particularly when they are teething, and as you may guess chewing electrical cables can be bad for the health, it can take a lot of chewing for something bad to happen, but the possibility is there so it is worth acting to prevent it. There may now be specialist things you can box the cables in to make it so the kittens can't access them, but one trick i did hear was to get pipe lagging, the type that comes as foam tubes about a meter long. This can then be put around the cables meaning the kittens can't access them. it is a cheap and effective technique, even if not the most sightly option.

[lauramdavies]

Thank you Ruth! Yes I’ve been looking at the morass of cables behind our tv with intrepidation but have bought some of that foam stuff and boxes to house extensions leads in. Will probably take half a day to sort it out!!

And thank you too @fjm that’s is reassuring in a scary kind of way haha! Someone else suggested putting orange peel up on the shelves to discourage.

[Mollycat]

To be fair none of my 3 kittens ever chewed or played with cables, except one who would try to catch the iron lead while I was using it. She was swiftly and enthusiastically discouraged from this practice, but as it only happened when we were using it, that wasn't too difficult. Not all kittens get up to all the mischief. Though the way we are so careful these days it sometimes makes me wonder how any of our cats ever reached adulthood! They don't tend to be destructive on the same scale as puppies though.

Also, and I think it could be an important point, we used to get kittens at 6 to 8 weeks when it's much easier to pick up where Momma cat left off. Still hard wired to do as they are told by a kind, loving but firm Momma figure. At 3-4 months they are in know-it-all teenager mode and much more likely to cause trouble just for attention. At that point if they already have a strong bond with their human, they might be much easier rather than giving you the "you're not my real mom" attitude.

Enjoy, anyway, Goofy Kitten grows up so quickly, though in some ways they can stay kitten and playful well into their human years teens.