Need tips for catmom w/ two adopted kittens.
I have a mother cat and her two separately adopted kittens in foster care.
The kittens are very well socialized — they play, climb all over my partner and me, and they’re completely unbothered by strangers.
But the mom is extremely stressed :(
She spends most of the time hiding under our couch. We don’t know what she does at night.
If she’s out in the room and we enter, she’ll hiss and rush back under the couch. She seems completely exhausted from being in constant fight-or-flight mode. We’ve been giving her the natural calming remedies the shelter provided, but they honestly don’t seem to help much.
About once or twice a day, she’ll come out on her own and ask for affection. She rubs against our legs, knees, and sometimes even purrs while doing it 🤣
But the second we move our hands or bodies wrong, she gets overwhelmed and lashes out. She has bitten and held onto my arm once, and another time she put her claws into my hand even though SHE was the one rubbing against my unmoving hand. She’s also bitten my knee while voluntarily being “cuddly.”
I’ve realized she gets overstimulated very easily. She’s hormonal, likely exhausted from constantly watching over her kittens, and extremely hypervigilant. What’s interesting is that she fully allows us to handle the kittens — just not near her.
Sometimes, if I quietly sit in the room without moving much, she’ll come out and lie on the carpet beside the couch. But she retreats again if I start moving around.
We also recently had to move her into another room because she became even more stressed in the previous one. She couldn’t keep visual contact with the kittens due to the furniture layout, which made her more reactive and aggressive toward us. Since the move, she’s no longer truly aggressive — more like constantly warning us to keep our distance.
She LOVES liquid treats, and she’ll eat them from our hands. I also mix some with her calming meds and sometimes give her some when I enter the room. Afterward, though, she usually goes right back under the couch.
The shelter is considering sterilizing her soon in hopes that it’ll calm her down, but I’m worried the issue may actually be fear of humans rather than hormones alone.
Does anyone have tips for helping a cat like this build trust and become more socialized? Is it possible, or do we just need a lot more time? :(
(Cat pic for tax — and yes, we made the room darker and quieter for her by rolling down the curtains.)
TL;DR: Foster mom cat still hides under the couch after 2 weeks, hisses/runs away when we move, and can slap or bite if overstimulated. She’ll eat treats from our hands and sometimes seeks affection on her own, but she still doesn’t trust us fully. Looking for advice on building trust and socializing her further.