Comments for 4 month old kitty with a suckling issue

Jul 20, 2009
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4 month old kitten suckling
by: Anonymous

I adopted a 4 month old kitten from my sisters' GM. The kitten(Mozart) was given to me at about 8 weeks old. The problem i am having now is that he sits on me or my son and sucks and kneads on our shirts. How can I stop this, and what would have caused it to start?
Thank you,
Sue

This behavior is not uncommon. The kitten is imitating the behavior kittens have with their moms when they nurse. I understand it may not be desirable now, however!

Kneading is something that many cats do for life and that many cat lovers enjoy because it is usually performed when the cat is happy. Trying to break that habit would possibly be detrimental to the cat's well-being. If you don't want the cat to do that on your clothing, you have to put the cat down everytime he does that although I doubt that he will stop the behavior in general.

You can, however, work on the sucking behavior. Gentle remove his mouth when he does that and gently keep him from doing it. You can distract with toys or something else that is safe for him to bite or suck on and you can also gently put him down as mentioned before.

Dr. Neely