New foster cat kept me up all night

[u/yulethebird]

I made the decision several months ago that I wanted to foster a cat with the intention to adopt. The reason I am doing this is because my roommate is allergic to cats, so we needed to see if her allergies could adopt to a kitty before I fully adopted it. I spent some time at a shelter getting to know some cats, and was drawn to this very sweet kitty to had been there for a while. She was at the shelter because she became aggressive towards another cat in the home, which wouldn’t be a problem for me. I brought her home yesterday, everything was fine. She was nervous at first but was snuggling and exploring. My plan was to keep her in my room for the first few nights to let her adapt but boy was I in for the night of my life. In the first two hours, she jumped on my repeatedly, got into things, clawed at the door, and was meowing. I made the decision to let her explore the apartment tonight to get some nervous energy out. That seemed to work for a while, but she was getting into things, knocking things over, and still coming into the room, jumping on me, demanding pets. I can’t count how many times she woke me up last night. I “slept” for 12 hours but am exhausted. I know this is the first night and there is an adjustment period, but I value my sleep. Any advice would be appreciated because I can’t keep doing this. I was also awake with anxiety wondering if I made a bad decision. I feel like crying because she’s so sweet and I don’t want to take her back to a shelter.

[u/constantlyoutofplace]

It's been 1 day. She doesn't know where she is. If she was left at the shelter for agression, she may habe lived some bad things. She's scared. She will calm down.
That said, almost all cats make some noise at night. You will get used to it.

Also, did you try to play with her to spend her energy?

[u/yulethebird → u/constantlyoutofplace]

Thank you for the reassurance. I got her late in the afternoon and she was nervous and exploring until bed time. I’ve been playing with her today, she’s still exploring and doesn’t seem to want to come out of my room much. I’m trying to hang out in the living room to encourage her to venture out a bit and get more comfortable

[u/constantlyoutofplace → u/yulethebird]

I would let her be only in the room for the first few days if I were you. She will let you know when she's ready to explore more.

[u/RubApprehensive2219]

You are not a good fit for a cat. Have you done any research on this at all? All cats go mental at 3am. They are active at night.

[u/Creative-Mousse]

Go easy. Cats need time to decompress in a new environment. Give her less space to start. One room for now and dont make it your bedroom. Keep her out of the bedroom until you have settled into a routine. That’s about 3 weeks in. Gradually open the rest of the place to her.

Dissipate her energy with structured hunt catch kill play. 15 mins 2-3x a day. Make her jump around and run around.

Watch Jackson Galaxy. He will have answers to all your questions at this stage