Dear Knowledgeable Reader,
I need your advice!
We all have strengths and weaknesses and I’ve realised that a real deficiency of mine is in the area known as Bed Terrority Tactics (BTT), i.e. the subtle art of maintaining or acquiring extra space whilst sharing a bed. Whilst awake I am very competent at BTT, but soon as I fall asleep whoever is in my bed is able to take advantage (not like that) and monopolise the bed, even cats!
Several years ago I was staying at my parents in my old room and was frustrated by the lack of space by the single bed. Our lovely old cat Nemo came in during the night, as he often did, to sleep on the bed too. As I was in the bed and aware of his presence he went to sleep parallel to me in what was a good use of the limited space. Cue a few hours later and I wake up somewhat uncomfortable only to realise I am right up against the wall! Nemo was no longer parallel to me, but perpendicular and was clearly enjoying all of the bed.
How did he do this? How was I able to relinquish my territory so easily? I’m not looking to monopolise the bed (maybe this is where I go wrong?), but just want to maintain my share of the bed so I have enough space to be comfortable for mid-sleep position readjustments.
If you have any advice or tips, please let me know as every night I seem to lose the bed territory war. As soon as I fall asleep I apparently wave the white flag for the other party to freely come and invade.
For those of you who sniggered at that last sentence, shame on you, you are better than that. Well …
21st Century Boy 
May 20th, 2014 at 4:46 am
I used to have a cat, Patches, who did something similar.
This cat was a stray that adopted us as a family and was very well behaved. It adopted my family (meaning it came into our yard and never left, lol!) my first summer home from university. It slept in it’s bed which was in our family room. That was all well and good, until I came home for winter break during my second year of university.
By that time, Patches had adopted my bed (which was a single bed also) as her own. She was brown and white and so was my bedding at the time, so many times she would just lay on my bed while the family was searching for her. Once we figured out what she was doing, I changed my color scheme, lol!
Anywho, to keep her at bay or on her side of the bed, while I was visiting home, I would sleep spreadeagled. Patches quickly got the memo that if she wanted to sleep in my bed, she would have to find a place in a corner somewhere and couldn’t sleep in the middle.
I suggest try sleeping completely spread out on the bed when you’re home. It worked for me:)