15 Things New Pawrent Frequently Forget to do When Preparing their Cat Child’s Furever Home

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Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Jul 4, 2026 7:00 PM EDT

Bringing home a feline fur baby for the first time is such an overwhelmingly exhilarating experience that it is inevitable that you will furget to do something along the way. But thanks to the pawrents who contributed to this collection you will be in with a chance of being prepawed for your pawdorable arrival.

Reddit's r/CatAdvice subreddit is a great place to pick up tips and tricks to ensure you and your family are going to be ready when your cat child comes home for the first time. But it is inevitable that while in the throes of trying to think how to find balance between how you want your home to look and what is suitable for a cat, you are bound to overlook at least one or two things. Things which later on could prove to be critical in the care of your cat child.

I am of course talking here about the rare and extreme cases, the events that make you question why on earth you ever became a pawrent in the first place. But those are the exact moments you deserve to be prepawed for. Because if you are and they do actually come along then they will be much easier to handle. For example you might consider protecting your carpets if you are particularly fond of them, because at some point that cat is going to expel something on that carpet and you had better hope it is protected or that it'll be something that can come out in the wash.
 

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  • 01
    "Get a pair of ear plugs in your bedside, they love to play at night most." SPROUTS CORN N's Sall Added
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  • 02
    MsSloth420 If you have house plants, check to make sure none of them are toxic to cats. Get them their own furniture, like scratchers/beds/cat tree. This should keep kitty from scratching at furniture.
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    Cheezburger Image 10642975488
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    kirbysdreampotato Try to block off under beds, as much as possible. Cats love it as a hiding space, but it makes them so hard to reach in an emergency. When I lived in an apartment, my SO and I had to push the whole mattress and boxspring onto the floor in a hurry to grab one of our cats. Our bed was too close to the floor for either of us to fit under and she was out of reach. It was just a false alarm (as is common in apartments) but definitely opened our eyes as to how bad that could have bee
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  • This is such a valid point and one that you will never be able to think of enough. By which I mean, the bed is an obvious place to start but there are infinite places like that around your home that you would have never thought possible for a cat to squeeze into and hide. I had one cat who would slip in between the floor and the couch (a gap of 2 inches at best) and then hide in the fold up part of the couch inside the couch. Now this boy wasn’t in any danger but it was still annoying as heck. But I had one female cat who found her way into a tiny crevice under the oven. This turned into an hour long ordeal where she tried to crawl through another smaller hole in the brickwork where I would have lost her to the inner structure of the building.
     

  • 05
    Cheezburger Image 10642974464
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  • 06
    Qui_te Practice waking up every 3-5 hours at night. Just for a few minutes, then go back to sleep. If you want to practice the full experience, smack yourself in the head with a stuffed animal a few times while you're awake, or p ch yourself in whichever part of your abdomen is most tender.
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    Cheezburger Image 10642977536
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    Trueloveis4u When I adopted my girl I had to lock away the toilet paper in a bin. She loved tearing it up.
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  • 09
    Cheezburger Image 10642975232
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  • 10
    pennypenny22 Cover up wires (you can get special tubing to do this) or spray them with bitter spray like Dr Grannicks.
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    Cheezburger Image 10642975744
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    Super_Reading2048 Prepare hiding spots ahead of time (like a box on it's side with a towel draped over it.) Or be prepared for them to hide under the bed. Stressed out cats often hide under the bed. A hiding spot helps ease their stress.
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  • 13
    Amanita muscar
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    Leolou6 Get a pair of ear plugs in your beside locker, they love to play at night most
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  • 15
    Cheezburger Image 10642974720
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  • 16
    tokyokween Until you know what kind of random playing they like to do, make sure to secure/hide any hair ties, loose thread on rugs and clothing, wires and cables etc - basically the things they might try and nibble, eat or swallow!
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    Cheezburger Image 10642974976
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    lesheeper Get in the habit of not leaving food around, especially where you don't want your cat to go. They are smart and have little impulse control. Lost a broccoli this week that was unattended for two minutes.
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    Cheezburger Image 10642976000
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  • Wow, two minutes? That is a long time actually. I had a cat who used to fight for my food in real time. No shame, no remorse just a constant onslaught of kitten paws prodding and poking at the food on my plate in the hopes of latching onto something and scurrying away. Once I did not look for ten seconds and he managed to snag three french fries before I could stop him. Thankfully he was not especially smart and immediately proceeded to drop the fries after smashing his face into the glass of the table he was underneath.
     

  • 20
    Cheezburger Image 10642977024
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  • 21
    Morrighu87 Grab some child locks for your fridge and pantry. Honest. My son is 19. I can't remove the child locks because my CAT opens the doors to have a rummage around.
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  • 22
    SPROUTS FARMERS MARKET SUPERSWEET WHOLE KERNEL CORN No Salt Added NON GMO Project ERIFIED NET WT 15.25 OZ (432 g)
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  • 23
    crzycatldyinal Make sure your window screens are secure. My cats have pulled out 3 of mine so far.
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    Z
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    catmamma21 Watch the windows, keep them closed, or put a mosquito net that cannot be opened. They can be out the window in a split second
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    Cheezburger Image 10642976256
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    [deleted] Decide where you can have a little area set up just for them to go, low traffic area. It needs to be a quiet area ideally with a water fountain, litter box, food, comfy bed. If you don't have much space then just a little corner somewhere. My vet advised me of that early on and it's really helped my baby.
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    Cheezburger Image 10642977792
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    elainebenes_dance If you're getting a kitten, be careful with feather toys (supervised play is Ok, but lock them up when you're not around). Kittens love to eat feathers
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  • 30
    No Secret8533 Scotchgard your carpets or choose ones which will hide ke and kibble stains, just in case. Cats can v it anytime for nearly any reason but some do so more frequently than others. (Don't worry, it's very rarely anything to be concerned about healthwise.) It's good to have enzyme spot removers for carpets and fabrics on hand.
    via Impossible_Demand_62

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