How often should you feed your kitten?

Highlights

• A good regime is offering wet food in the morning and evening, but leaving their allowance of dry food out throughout the day. Fresh water must also be available at all times.
• At 2-3 months old, kittens need 3-5 servings of food split across 4-5 meals a day, before moving to 4-7 servings spread evenly over 3 meals at around the six-month mark.
• Kittens are still developing until 12 months of age, so it’s important not to transition them to adult food until this point. Follow a 7-day gradual method to help your kitten move over to adult cat food.
• Some kittens take well to being free-fed when they are young, but after the age of 3-4 months, they are less able to self-regulate. This means controlling your kitten’s meals and portion sizes is crucial to avoiding obesity.
• Chocolate, onions, garlic, grapes, and raisins are toxic for cats of all ages. Cats and kittens are lactose intolerant and should only consume specially formulated cat milk. For safety reasons, any meat and fish you feed your cat should be thoroughly cooked, too.

‘How often do you feed a kitten?’ and ‘How much should my kitten eat?’ are two burning questions we’ve all had when excitedly preparing for the arrival of the newest and smallest member of the household.

Explore the article for a deep dive into everything you need to know before being joined by your newest family member.

How much food does a kitten need each day?

Age, breed, activity level and the type of food chosen all influence how many times a kitten should eat a day and how much. You should always follow the guidance on the kitten food label closely. Your chosen kitten food will tell you how much a kitten should eat (usually given by your kitten's age). Just divide the amount by the number of meals you are giving each day to calculate the quantity your kitten will need for each meal.

As they are fast-growing, the nutritional needs of your kitten will change substantially over time. Most of these changes will occur in the first year of growth, so it’s important you know how many pouches to feed your kitten and when:

• 0-3 Weeks: Kittens without access to their mother’s milk will need to be fed every few hours.
• 3-4 Weeks: This is around the time kittens will begin weaning off of milk and onto solid wet cat food. It’s important to offer your kitten a balanced diet complete with protein-rich kitten food to support its growth. Calcium and phosphorus, fed in the right ratio, is also a must for supporting developing teeth and bones, as well as other nutrients that support your kittens' physiological and neurological developments and also their vision.
• 8 Weeks: How many pouches should a kitten eat at 8 weeks? Around 3-5 pouches of soft-textured wet kitten food per day, spread evenly over 4-5 small, regular meals. A kitten pouch normally contains around 85g of food, but can vary according to brand. If you choose to introduce some dry kitten food or prefer a mixed diet, omit a wet pouch and replace it with 20-25g of dry food.

Note: Most kittens will stay with their mum and not be allowed to join your home until they are 12 weeks of age.

The chart below provides guidance on how much a kitten should eat a day and how often to feed them, based on wet kitten food. It should be used as an average estimate and used in conjunction with the recommended amounts to feed your kitten on your chosen food label.

* Free feeding is based on the principle that kittens will eat whenever they are hungry as they transition to solid food, just as they got milk from their mother on demand during their first month.

What are the best times to feed my kitten?

Consistent feeding times with regular intervals are a good idea when you are thinking about how often to feed your kitten. 

If you start by mirroring our human habits with 3 meals a day being breakfast, lunch and dinner, you can then add on an extra one or two meals if required, spacing them out accordingly. For example, if you have a younger kitten and 5 meals a day are needed, you can add a mid-afternoon meal and an additional supper later in the evening.

As kittens develop quickly, their needs change substantially. This means the amount of food they need, and when they need it, will change:

• 3-6 Weeks: Provide your kitten with formula every 4-6 hours.
• 6-12 Weeks: Your kitten should be eating 4 meals daily, spread evenly throughout the day.
• 3-6 Months: You should offer your kitten 3 meals a day, in the morning, at midday, and in the evening.
• 6-12 Months: Your cat now needs only 2 meals, one in the morning and one in the evening.

Your kitten should be eating a diet made up of kitten-specific wet food to support their hydration. You can combine this with some dry kitten food if you’d like. If you’re unsure, the label will tell you how many pouches of kitten food a day to give, so always follow it closely.

You should transition your kitten to adult food when they are about a year old.

How to transition kittens to cat food

The best way to help your kitten transition into adult food is through a gradual 7-10 day timeline.

On the first 2 days, give your kitten a mix of 75% kitten food and 25% adult food. Mixing the foods together will help your cat acclimatise to the new smells and textures. Next, move to a 50/50 mix for days 3 and 4. Over the next couple of days, try 75% adult food and just 25% kitten food, before finally using 100% adult food at the end of the process.

Make sure you’re monitoring your cat’s health throughout this transitional period, though. In particular, keep an eye out for any signs of digestive upset like vomiting or diarrhoea. If you do see any of these signs, you can take an even more gradual approach, giving your kitten more days to adjust to each stage of the process.

Should I let my kitten eat as much as they want?

Knowing how many times a day a kitten should eat is key to striking the right balance between fuelling rapid growth and avoiding overfeeding.

Kittens younger than 3 months can be ‘free-fed’, whereby you leave out an unlimited amount of food all day long and let them graze on it naturally. For many kittens, allowing them to eat as much as they want works well as they self-regulate food intake. For others, though, the temptation to gorge on food can lead to the risk of obesity. It’s best to try free-feeding and assess whether it suits your kitten.

As they get older, from 3-6 months, meal regulation is more important. Follow the guidelines on your kitten's food as to the recommended amount. If still in doubt, you can also weigh your kitten (or ask your vet to do this), as weight provides an accurate guide to how much your kitten should eat a day.

The feeding requirements of an indoor cat vary from those of a more active outdoor cat. As your cat ages, you should consider your cat’s lifestyle when choosing a feeding regime.

What are the pros and cons of free feeding kittens?

‘Free feeding’ stops young kittens from eating too quickly and getting distended tummies. Greedier kittens, however, can overfeed and put on too much weight using this method. 

Some owners leave a bowl of dry food out for their kitten (moistened if they are under 8 weeks), while introducing mealtimes for wet food.  It is therefore best to test, watch and learn about the individual habits of your kitten and discover what suits them best, making sure you monitor free feeding as your kitten’s pet parent.  

You can then decide whether ‘free-feeding’ is right for you and your kitten.

Foods not to feed your kitten

When thinking about what to feed a kitten, it might seem logical to supplement their diet with leftover human food. It’s crucial to remember, though, that kittens have a different food tolerance than we do. 

They need particular nutrients that human food will either not contain or not be present in the right quantities, plus some foods can even be poisonous to kittens and cats.

Foods that are dangerous for a kitten, or an adult cat, include onions, garlic, chocolate, grapes, raisins. Raw food, whether this is meat, liver, fish or even eggs, is also not advised as it can contain bacteria harmful to kittens. Even adult cat food is not suitable for kittens, as their nutritional needs are so specific. 

Surprisingly, milk and dairy products are also a definite ‘no’ as kittens and cats are largely lactose intolerant. The only exposure kittens have had to milk is from their mother, and this is for just a few weeks. A kitten’s stomach is therefore not genetically designed to process dairy milk (or indeed any dairy milk substitutes) as they grow into an adult cat. To find out more about the right food to meet your kitten’s nutritional needs, take a look at our article, ‘What should I feed my kitten’.

How often should I feed my kitten wet food?

How many pouches of kitten food a day your kitten needs depends primarily on their age. At 8 weeks, a rapidly growing kitten will need 3-5 pouches of wet food per day, which means you will be feeding them every 2-3 hours. By the time your kitten reaches 6 months of age, their growth rate will have slowed down, and meals will be reduced to between 2-4 per day. These amounts will approximately halve if you decide on a combination diet of wet and dry food. You may find our article ‘Wet vs dry cat food: which is better?’ helpful in making this decision.

It's obviously important to take your own routine into account when deciding how many times a day you should feed your kitten. It might be that you want to ‘free feed’ if you are out at work during the day, or you may want to look into buying an automatic feeder, so your kitten has regular mealtimes. It is always a good idea to leave a little more kitten food out at night and again for their breakfast, to cover the gap in their feeding.

Find out more about what to feed kittens and the difference between kitten and cat food to ensure your kitten has the best possible diet to meet their nutritional needs.

How often to feed your kitten FAQ’s

Is 2 cans of wet food a day enough for a kitten?

How much a kitten should eat a day depends on their age, and 2 cans may not be enough. Kittens typically need 4-5 meals (3-5 servings of wet kitten food) per day in their first 3 months and 3 meals (4-7 servings) per day in their first 6 months.

How much should kittens eat per day?

This depends on the age of your kitten. Here’s a simple breakdown of how many meals your kitten should be eating per day at each age:

• 1-2 Months: Food should be readily available at all times. Top up when required.
• 2-3 Months: Your kitten should be given 4-5 meals per day – how many pouches of kitten food a day this amounts to is typically 3-5 servings of wet kitten food.
• 3-6 Months: Give your kitten 3 meals a day, made up of 4-7 servings of wet kitten food.
• 6-12 Months: Keeping with the 4-7 servings of wet kitten food, your kitten can now drop to 2 meals per day.

What is the 3-3-3- rule for kittens?

The 3-3-3 rule refers to the settling-in process for a new kitten. It suggests that it takes a new kitten about 3 days to decompress and come out of their shell a bit, 3 weeks to learn new routines such as feeding and litter tray use, and 3 months to feel completely at home.

Do kittens stop eating when they are full?

Kittens do not always stop eating when they’re full, especially as they grow. Kittens over the age of 3-4 months are often unable to self-regulate and will continue to eat so long as there is food in front of them.

This is why monitoring the amount your kitten eats and controlling their portions is key to avoiding issues like obesity.