Reply #3: I've described Little miss psycho before, but...

[Patiod]

in search of her breakfast, my cat will start pestering us between 3:30am and 5:30 am. She knocks things off my vanity table and night stand (water, alarm clock, phone, lamp). She runs across our heads. She will sit inches from my face and hit my nose with her paw, and she'll pull at my hair. If we're completely out of it, and ignore all these tricks, she bites. If we put her out of the room and close the bedroom door, she'll throw herself against it for over an hour (and we have downstairs neighbors, who must be able to hear the racket, so we've never let her go longer than an hour, although I'm sure she would).

This morning, she bit me really hard on the arm, and I'm ashamed to say I reflexively smacked her, although in my defense, it was 4am, I was 90% asleep, and I have never done anything like that when I was awake. I got up out of guilt, petted her head, and fed her, and then around 5:30 I heard S.O. say "don't worry, I just fed the cat". So she got her revenge -- two breakfasts.

Because this nonsense has been going on for 3 years, I am constantly tired, and at wit's end. She is otherwise a really sweet, affectionate little cat, but she's driving us crazy. We've tried the squirt bottle technique, which results in an angry, wet cat running across our heads and biting us - no improvement at all.

As you say, she's not hurting for food - there is always dry available, and she gets a teaspoonful of wet food at 6pm & 11pm. If I ever have another cat, I will NOT feed it in the morning, that's one lesson I've learned. I've also learned that they are the stubbornist creatures on the planet.