The past week my cat has started meowing at night and it is keeping me up every night. I'm a light sleeper so even with the door closed, it wakes me up. It's not due to being hungry or litter issues. I've eliminated those. The only thing I can think of is she is just bored. We have another cat but he is 8 years older and basically goes to bed with us when we do. Not really sure what to do but I haven't had a good sleep in a week. Any advice? Worth going to vet for this?
I am not a vet, but I have had cats for years and my wife works directly in the animal food industry:
What kind of food are you feeding them?
Something I've learned is that cats obtain most of their fluid intake from their food, and don't naturally gravitate to drinking from water bowls/bodies of water. So if your cat is on a primarily kibble/crunchies diet then it may actually be somewhat dehydrated, even if you do have a water bowl for it and you see it drinking every so often (it may even be drinking a lot, if it is getting dehydrated).
The light dehydration itself may not be a huge problem but it can lead to urinary tract infections in cats. If that happens then it is likely very uncomfortable, which could result in it meowing for attention a whole lot more than you are used to.
If you aren't already, I'd advise trying to feed them a wetfood diet for a little while and see if this behavior stops. Monitor their litter box too, check if there is any blood in the urine or anything like that. Not all cats are the same, we have 2 and one of them eats a diet of primarily crunchies and drinks enough water to not dehydrate. Our other cat absolutely needs a diet of primarily wet food, or she is very susceptible to UIs.
If they are already eating a diet of wet food, disregard this and yeah take them to a vet (which if it's been a while since you've taken them to a vet anyway you may just want to take them for an exam of sorts, and let the vet know of their behavior).
