Why Some Cats Stop Sleeping Next to You

My husband and I have an unspoken competition in our household over which cat is going to sleep on or near us. For a long time Thelma would sleep at my feet, then one day, out of the blue, she switched over to Cory and stayed there for months. Then she switched back to me, and now she’s back on Cory. LOL. It’s a total merry-go-round.

Louis, on the other hand, is very diplomatic and sleeps in between us. But Thelma? There’s no telling when she might give one of us the boot and move to the other.

So when a cat who used to sleep on you suddenly doesn’t, I’ve learned not to take it personally. Cats rearrange where they sleep all the time, and a spot that was perfect in March can be wrong by June for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

If you want the short version, these are the most common reasons a cat stops sleeping next to you:

• They found a better spot (for now). Cats are picky. If there’s a spot that’s warmer, higher, or a tad quieter, they might just be on the next stop in their rotation.
• The bed smells different. If it’s laundry day, or if you bought a new comforter, those can all have an impact on where your cat decides to sleep.
• You move too much in your sleep. If you toss and turn, or you’re sleeping in a new position, your cat might feel unsettled and look for a new place to catch some Zzzzz’s until you settle down.
• The temp. Sometimes if we’re sleeping hot or cold, our cats might be affected by that and seek somewhere more comfortable for the time being.
• A big change at home. If you have houseguests, or got a new pet or addition to the family, or moved, big changes can affect cats in different ways. Once they get back to their new normal, chances are they’ll come back to you.
• They’re getting older, or something hurts. If you notice a strange sleeping pattern in your cat, or that they can’t jump up on the bed when they used to, reach out to your vet and let them know.

They rotate, and they kick each other out

Even in our own house, the cats rotate where they sleep, and sometimes one will straight up kick the other one out of a spot. They have their favorites. There’s a cozy chair in our office, and usually one or both of them will sleep on top of it. There’s a cat bed in our bedroom that Louis will take during the day, especially if he’s kicked Thelma out of it, and at night he sort of takes it over while Thelma comes into the bed with us. We have another cat bed in the living room by the window that’s pure Thelma, and I’ve never once seen Louis sleep in it. Then there are two chairs in the living room, where Louis usually takes the right one and Thelma takes the left, and they’re both known to end up on the dining room chairs too. Usually we’ll find one or the other in one of these spots, but it’s sporadic, and there’s no real predicting where they’ll land.

We’re not the only ones. One cat owner described the exact same cycle:

My cats goes through phases. She’ll sleep with me for months on end and then one night, she’ll decide that she prefers the couch. After a few months on the couch, she’ll return to sleeping on my bed. There’s no warning and no noticeable reason for the change.

— via Reddit.com

It’s usually scent, not you

Because the cats are so scent focused, I do worry whenever we wash the sheets, and we’ve had a couple of instances where we got a new duvet or a new comforter. Thankfully, the cats haven’t really been deterred by any of that. Louis is the specific one. He’s got two suckle blankets, one he loves and one he doesn’t, and if we put the one he doesn’t like on the bed, he’s constantly trying to avoid it. He’ll still come up, but he won’t snuggle quite as much. Thelma is the same way about scent in general. She once boycotted her favorite water bowl for days because it went through the dishwasher and came out smelling like the dishwasher instead of like home, so now we hand-wash it.

If your cat moved off the bed right after laundry day or a new comforter, that’s worth considering before you take it personally. Leaving their own blanket up there gives them a scent they recognize.

We sleep like mummies so they won’t leave

If you’re lucky enough to have a cat sleep on you, you know all too well that if you make one wrong move, they can just hop off, and this happens all the time. It’s why, whichever cat is sleeping on us, we sleep like mummies. I swear I’ve woken up with frozen ankles so many times because I’m afraid to move. We really want them to sleep with us, so we’re very cautious about how we sleep when we have a cat on us. One wrong move and they’ll jump down off the bed.

Temperature, if your weather changes

Because we live in Florida, and we’re almost always running the AC, we don’t really notice a big difference in temperature. It did get pretty cold this past winter, but we didn’t notice any difference in their sleep behavior, and they still slept in the same spots. So I can’t say heat or cold has ever pushed one of them off the bed, but if you live somewhere with real seasons, you might see more of it than we do.

The one reason to take seriously

The one I’d actually want on your radar is related to age and pain. If you notice a strange sleeping pattern in your cat, or that they can’t jump up on the bed when they used to, reach out to your vet and let them know. Cats hide pain really well, so a change in where they sleep is sometimes the first sign that something’s wrong, especially if they’ve started sleeping somewhere hidden like the back of a closet.

What we actually do about it

Once you’ve ruled out the serious version, you’re mostly looking at a cat doing, well, normal cat things. We just let them sleep where they want to sleep. Sometimes we’ll bring one of them up if we want to snuggle, and if they get down, they get down.

Other people do the same thing. One owner’s approach after adding a second cat:

Sometimes cats need to be reminded that they’re still welcome. We got another cat and one stopped sleeping in our bed, so I’d bring him to the bed.

— via Reddit.com

As anybody who owns a cat knows, you’ve got to let them do their own thing.