The first week with a kitten: a day-by-day plan

A kitten arrives weighing about as much as a bag of sugar and within a week has an opinion on every room in your home. It is an easy animal to bring home badly, because the natural instinct, show it everything, let everyone hold it, give it the run of the house, is the opposite of what a small prey animal in a strange place needs.

Here is the week in the order it actually happens.

Before the kitten arrives#

The age. A kitten should be at least eight weeks old and ideally twelve before leaving its mother and litter. Those extra weeks are where it learns bite inhibition and cat manners from its siblings, and kittens taken at six weeks are over-represented among adult cats with behaviour problems. If you have a choice, wait.

One room. Choose a small, quiet room to be the kitten's base for the first days: a bedroom, a study, a bathroom. Not the whole house. A whole house to a kitten is an open plain with nowhere safe.

The kit that matters:

• A litter tray with low sides, and the same litter the kitten already uses. Ask. A change of litter on the same day as a change of home is the most common cause of first-week accidents.
• The same food it has been eating, for at least the first week. Change later, gradually, over seven to ten days.
• Food and water bowls, shallow and wide, placed well away from the tray. Cats dislike eating near their toilet, and many dislike water next to their food.
• A hiding place: a cardboard box on its side with a blanket is perfect, and better than any bed you can buy.
• A scratching post, sturdy and tall enough to stretch on, from day one, so the habit forms on the post and not the sofa.
• A carrier, which stays out, open, with a blanket in it, as furniture. A carrier that only appears before the vet becomes the enemy for fifteen years.
• A few toys: a wand toy, some small balls. Nothing with string left out unsupervised.

Kitten-proof at kitten height. Get down on the floor. Cables, blind cords, hair ties, rubber bands, needles and thread, gaps behind the washing machine and the fridge, the tumble dryer door, open windows and balconies, the toilet lid. And check your plants: lilies are deadly to cats, every part of them, and should leave the house entirely.

Day 1: do less#

Bring the kitten home in the carrier with something that smells of its old home if you can get it. Put the carrier down in the base room, open the door, and sit on the floor. Let the kitten come out by itself. It may take a minute or two hours. Do not tip it out.

Show it the tray once, by placing it in gently. Then leave it to explore the room, and let it hide if it wants to. Hiding is not unhappiness; it is how a cat takes in a new place. Visitors, children queuing for a cuddle, the resident dog: all of that waits.

The first night. Most kittens cry. They have never slept alone. A warm (not hot) covered water bottle and a ticking clock or soft radio in the box genuinely help. Whether the kitten sleeps in your room is your choice, but decide now, because whatever you do this week is what the cat will expect for life.

The mistakes of day one are all versions of too much: too much space, too many people, too much handling, a new food and a new litter at once.

Days 2 and 3: routine#

Feeding. Kittens under six months need three to four small meals a day, of a food labelled complete for kittens. Put meals at fixed times. Note what goes in and what comes out; a kitten that has not eaten for 24 hours, or has diarrhoea for more than a day, needs the vet, because kittens have no reserves.

The tray. Place the kitten in it after meals, after sleep and after play. Scoop at least daily. If there is an accident, clean it with an enzymatic cleaner and say nothing: a kitten has no idea what a telling-off is about, and learns only that you are frightening.

Hands are not toys. This is the rule that matters most and the one everyone breaks, because a kitten attacking your fingers is adorable. It is much less adorable from a five-kilo adult. From day one, play is always with a toy on the end of something. If teeth or claws touch skin, the game stops and you go still and boring for a moment. Every person in the house has to do the same.

Handling. Several short, gentle sessions a day. Touch paws, look in ears, lift the lip, stroke the belly briefly, and finish before the kitten asks you to. Two minutes now saves years of wrestling over nail clips and tablets. Between two and about nine weeks is the main socialisation window and it is already closing when the kitten arrives, so calm, positive exposure to normal life matters this week: the hoover in another room, the doorbell, different people, being picked up.

Day 3 to 5: the vet#

Book a first check within the first few days, even if the kitten seems perfect. The vet will:

• examine it properly: heart, eyes, ears for mites, belly, fleas;
• start or continue vaccinations, usually at around 8–9 weeks and again at 12, with a booster at a year;
• worm it, since nearly all kittens have roundworms, and set up flea prevention with a product that is safe at its weight. Never use a dog flea product on a cat; permethrin kills cats;
• microchip it, or plan to at neutering. A legal requirement in a growing number of EU countries, and the only way a lost cat comes home;
• discuss neutering, now commonly done at around four months, before the first season or the first spraying;
• for a kitten of unknown background, talk about testing for FeLV and FIV, particularly if there is another cat at home.

Take the paperwork you were given and write everything down afterwards: the vaccine name and date, what comes next and when, the weight. This is exactly what the vaccination card and reminders in mypet care are for; a kitten's first year has more dates in it than any other year of its life, and the second vaccine is the one people forget.

Make the carrier pleasant on the way: a blanket that smells of home, a towel over the top, and a treat inside when you get back.

Days 4 to 7: the rest of the house#

When the kitten is eating, using the tray and coming to greet you, open the door. Let it explore one new room at a time, with the base room always available to run back to. Keep the tray where it is for now. Add a second tray later if the house is large or on more than one floor.

Other cats. Do not just put them together. Keep them apart for the first days and swap bedding so each learns the other's smell. Feed them either side of a closed door, then a door open a crack or a mesh barrier, then short supervised meetings. Hissing is normal. It takes from a week to a couple of months, and rushing it is how you get two cats that never get on.

Dogs. The dog on a lead, the kitten free with a high place to escape to. Reward the dog for calm. Never leave them alone together until you are entirely sure, and not at all in the first weeks.

Children. Sitting on the floor, the kitten comes to them, stroking with one hand, no carrying about, no waking a sleeping kitten, and the hands-are-not-toys rule applies double.

The things that need a vet today#

Kittens go downhill fast. Do not wait overnight for:

• not eating for 24 hours, or not drinking;
• repeated vomiting or diarrhoea, or any blood;
• laboured or open-mouth breathing;
• crusted, closed or weeping eyes with sneezing (cat flu is common and needs treating early);
• sudden floppiness, or a kitten that feels cold;
• straining in the tray without producing anything.

By the end of the week#

A good first week looks unremarkable. The kitten eats, uses the tray, sleeps in heaps, plays with the wand toy rather than your hand, wanders into the carrier by itself, and runs towards you when you come in. It has met the vet without a drama and you have a list of dates for the next few months.

Weigh it once a week for the first months, on kitchen scales in a bowl. A healthy kitten gains roughly 100 g a week, about a pound a month in the old rule of thumb. A steady line on that chart is the single best sign that everything else is going right.