The first night with bottle babies can be nerve-wracking. The kittens are trying to adjust to their new world-sans their mom, and you are trying to adjust to having to get up every three hours round-the-clock to feed them.

On their first night, the kittens will cry sometimes unceasingly. They will cry if they are hungry (usually a shrill, piercing “FEED ME NOW!” type of cry.) They will cry if they are getting stopped up and need a bathroom break- this cry is lower than the hunger cry, a sort of moaning meow as if the kitty has a tummy ache. The kittens often cry for their mother. This cry is louder than their food cry and you can hear it throughout your home.

They learn early on that mom leaves the nest for food periodically. They know, because she has taught them, that they have to be silent while she is gone (or predators may munch on them.) It is usually after the third day, when the kittens will become frantic and start screaming for mom.

It usually takes me about 24 hours to identify each kittens’ voice. As I lay there in the dark with the kitten box close-by, Their voices surround me. I can hear each meow distinctive in its own way. The boys are generally quieter than the girls (just like in our society.) But unlike a human baby, you can’t let newborn kittens cry themselves to sleep. If they don’t stop crying, their immune system bottoms out and you risk losing them to an illness.

Here is Dusky- sucking on his bottle-

If anyone reading this would like to sponsor one of these kittens till adoption- that would be wonderful. For $25.00 you will get photos and stories about the kitten you sponsor until it is adopted out. I will send these 3 times a month.

There is a donation button on my kitten-rescue site should you be interested. No, the $25.00 won’t even pay for the spay/neuter but it will help greatly to defray costs on this current crop of kittens.