What Kind of Room Should a New Kitty Spend Its First Night In?

Bright-eyed kittens are adorable. You may want only to cuddle up with your new furry friend and sleep the night away, but the kitten may have other ideas. Cats are nocturnal creatures who prefer to sleep during the day and roam around at night. If you combine the kitten's nocturnal habits with its lack of familiarity with your home, your idea of a nighttime cuddle could turn into a night of interrupted sleep and kitten feces on the floor.

  1. Point of View

    • Consider how the kitten must feel about being in unfamiliar surroundings. Any cat in this situation needs time to adjust to new surroundings, especially if you have other pets or children. It also needs to learn your expectations and where the litter box is.

    Cat Room

    • The kitten needs a place of its own during its first few days or weeks in your home. A small room, such as a bathroom or laundry, is a good place to start. Place the cat box, water and food in the room, along with a bed you want the kitten to use on an ongoing basis. A few toys will make the stay more enjoyable during those long nights when you want to sleep while the kitten is still wide awake. Place the water and food away from the cat box. Cats prefer not to eat where they go to the bathroom.

    Ideal Room

    • The room should be small enough to give the kitten a sense of security and yet large enough to have space to play. This needs to be a safe place where the cat can get away from children and other pets. Teach the children to leave the kitty alone when it is in this room. If the room has a door on it, you have the added option of locking the kitten in at night and when you are at work. This keeps the kitten out of trouble and close to his cat box. A small room also makes it easy to clean up in the event the kitten misses the litter box. While cats are typically not hard to litter train, this method allows you to be sure before releasing the cat into the rest of the house that it is consistently using its box.

    Long-term Benefits

    • Unless you want a permanent bed partner who likes to knead the knots out of your muscles, purr in your ear and routinely sleep on your head, train the cat to sleep on his bed in his room. Otherwise, you'll never get a good night's sleep. Additionally, making sure your cat is fully litter box trained before releasing it unsupervised in your home prevents accidents that can stain carpets and create a bad odor. Once a cat urinates on the carpets, they may think it is fine to go there again, especially if you fail to notice the accident and clean it up.